Chapter Five First Challenger (Patreon)

Reiko stared at the quest window. The goddess had vanished a while ago, and no amount of yelling at the air brought her back. The worst part was that it was a freaking A+ ranked quest, and it was one she would rather not do. Unfortunately that wasn’t an option as the fucking quest was on a freaking timer.

Congratulations! New Quest!

You have angered your Goddess Dewari. Pass her trial and repent for your rudeness. Conquer the dungeon before you before time runs out. Time remaining: 6hrs 37mins Quest Difficulty: A+

Reward:

Class upgrade: Lust Mage
New Equipment: Dress of the Succubus
New Title: Hero Candidate
Experience
Gold

Failure:

New Title: Master’s Faithful Pet
New Title: Pet Princess
Subclass change: Pet Princess
New Trait: Faithful Pet
New Trait: Simple Minded

She’d already wasted a fair amount of time just standing out here in her underwear, and the quest had silently ticked down. With a sigh, she glanced at the heavy stone doors leading into the hill. She did not feel confident about this. Reiko had been to a dungeon once before, but back then she had the benefit of a party to protect her. Dungeons were dangerous, filled with traps, and monsters. Going in alone was considered foolhardy, and Reiko knew she didn’t have the right skill set for that. Yet she had no choice, it was either risk the dungeon or let that timer expire and face the terrible fate the goddess had laid out for her. As for the other possible fate, that was a mixed bag. The title was good, but she had no idea about the equipment. As for the class, that was something she didn’t want. That didn’t seem like an upgrade, not to her anyway. It just became a question of what fate was preferable, and honestly the first seemed preferable.

Gripping her staff she finally urged herself to take a step towards the dungeon. She didn’t particularly relish challenging a dungeon in her underwear, but thankfully she was a mage. More importantly, she still had her staff, unfortunately, she hadn’t been able to find her bag. It had contained more than just her clothes, but also her supplies. Including a couple of potions, which would have been useful if she was running low on magic. Instead, she had nothing. Her only protection against whatever monsters were in there was her shields. Magical protection that all mages had access to. Hopefully, that protection was all she would need, as she didn’t know any other protection spells.

Reaching the door, she took one last look around the clearing. Hoping that she could at least spot her bag, but all she saw was the green grass, and the trees in the distance. It seemed her bag was nowhere to be found. If it was here, she was certain the brightly dyed fabric would have stood out against the green of the grass. Idly it occurred to her that damned goddess may have left it at that stone plaza she had been at just before she had met Dewari. Reiko pushed upon the heavy stone doors, and found that they swung open effortlessly.

A notification popped up.

Congrats! You have discovered an unknown dungeon!

Make a report to gain a reward!
You have entered the ??? Dungeon.
Alert! ??? Dungeon is a demonic dungeon beware of corruption!

New Quest! Available!
Dungeon Report

Report the location of this dungeon to a nearby guild or kingdom for experience and gold
Bonus Reward for any additional information you collect about the dungeon.
Difficulty: Trivial
Do you accept?

She sighed, and shelved the possible quest. Right now she didn’t have time for it. Thankfully the system allowed you to delay accepting quests. That one might certainly be worth her time after completing this quest. Assuming she managed to complete it. Not to mention it was an easy one. A really easy one, since it wasn’t ranked with a grade.

Instead of focusing on the new quest she had available, she was thinking about the fact that this dungeon was a demonic one. That was bad news for her, very bad news. Demons were hard for new mages to deal with. Mainly due to the common racial trait Demon Skin. Demon Skin provided a demon with natural armor. It provided some resistance to physical attacks, but more importantly, the trait greatly reduced the potency of combat spells. Demons with the trait were highly resistant to magic. She could only hope that she was facing Imps, as they were one of the few demons that didn’t have the trait.

As she started down the corridor from the entrance, she brought up her skills list, and traits.

Skills:

Novice Fire Magic Grade E

Novice Ice Magic Grade F

Initiate Water Magic Grade B

Novice Healing Magic Grade F

Beginner Staff Fighting Grade F

Apprentice Royal Etiquette Grade F-
Beginner Speechcraft Grade F-

Novice Leadership Grade F
Novice Royal Meditation Techniques Grade A

Novice Royal Mana Control Techniques Grade A

Novice Royal Mana Growth Techniques Grade A

Traits:

Racial:

Natural Ranger
Magic Affinity
Natural Mage
Natural Forest Dweller

Inherent:
Stormwind Royal

Magic Talent B
Fire Affinity A
Ice Affinity A
Water Affinity B

Lightning Affinity E+
Nature Affinity B-
Lust Affinity C+

Dark Affinity C

Light Affinity C

Shadow Affinity C

Alluring

Natural Born Loli

Acquired:

Lesser Potent Mana

Improved Mana Pool

Agile

Glancing over her traits, and skills, and ignoring some of the ones she wasn’t too fond of. Reiko tried to form a battle plan. Although without knowing her opponents, that was going to be hard. Only thing she knew was that she would be facing demons. She did have a few acquired traits. Lesser potent mana was nice since it increased the effect of her spells, and reduced their cost a little. The Improved Mana pool increased the maximum amount of mana her pool could hold, and agile allowed her to move more quickly. That last one was useful for dodging spells, and arrows. Not that it seemed to help against those bandits. Unfortunately she didn’t think any of these would help against demons, and she really hoped it didn’t come to a melee. With her terrible staff fighting skills, she doubted she could win. Especially if she was outnumbered.

The path came to an end, and she found herself entering a modestly sized room. It was sparsely decorated, and what really caught her attention were the two barely dressed demons in the room. She inspected them, but since she lacked the inspect skill, what she got back wasn’t much.

Race: Lesser Demon Girl

Level: 5

Race: Lesser Beastkin demon

Level: 5

All she had was their level, and race. Unfortunately, they were not Imps. Reiko cursed that goddess for this yet again, and raised her staff. At least she had a level advantage.

At the same moment the demon girl started chanting a spell. One she didn’t recognize. In response, she began muttering her own chant. Since she wasn’t yet experienced enough to cast without the crutch of a chant.

Before she could get far in the chant, the other demon charged, her claws extended. Inwardly Reiko cursed, but didn’t stop readying her spell. Instead, she jumped to the side. Barely escaping a powerful swipe.

Reiko turned, and raised her staff. Releasing a bolt of fire, which sailed across the room striking the chanting demon. A flare of blue light told her that the spell was blocked by a shield. No surprise there, it was rare for a mage not to have one.

The demon girl raised her hand, and unleashed a bolt of dark light. It crossed the space so fast that Reiko had no time to dodge, and it splashed against her shield. Reiko yelped as she felt a small flare of pain. Inwardly she cursed, as she recognized what that meant. The other demon moved at that moment, forcing Reiko to defend herself.

She barely managed to raise her staff defensively before a flurry of rapid claw strikes fell upon her. She blocked the first one, but several ripped into her shields. Reiko kicked out, barely managing to knock the demon off balance, and jumped back to gain distance. Already the demon mage was preparing another spell. Reiko began doing the same, while keeping a wary eye on them both. Reiko didn’t even risk checking her shield status.

The warrior was quick to recover, and charged to close the distance. Reiko attempted to maintain her distance, as by now the dance of battle had truly begun. She danced out of the way of a few strikes, and managed another spell. Another bolt of fire sailed from her staff, and exploded against the mage’s shield. This time she noticed it shimmer in the fashion of a strained shield. Another hit, and she will be through.

The feeling invigorated her, as she barely dodged another strike from the warrior, only to be hit by another painful bolt of light from the mage. She yelped, and was knocked off stride, allowing the warrior to strike her with a powerful blow. Her shield flared brightly as she was knocked backward. Her breath sailed out of her as she struck the wall. Even with the shield taking the brunt of it, she had felt that. Reiko cursed, and rolled out of the way as the demon came in. Another power attack barely missed her, and bounced harmlessly off the wall. Reiko whacked the demon over the head with her staff. The demon whimpered and shook her head before unleashing another flurry of rapid claw strikes.

A flash of light signaled another spell striking her shield. Thankfully it seemed to be holding, but she had little doubt that a good chunk of its strength was already gone. Reiko shook off the flare of pain and kicked. Her kick felt a little sluggish, and she missed. The demon’s next strike hit her right at that moment, and she lost her balance tumbling to the floor.

Before she could recover, the demon threw itself on top of her. Reiko tried to roll out of the way but failed. The demon pressed herself against Reiko’s body, and tried to slip a hand into her underwear. Reiko flushed as she realized the danger, and used a knee. At the same time she flailed with her staff, scoring a few hits that were mostly ineffective. One of her movements helped her dislodge the demon, and she quickly rolled away to regain her feet.

Just as she was getting to her feet again, she yelped as a bolt of light struck her shield and stung her again. The warrior was closing again, and Reiko moved to keep her distance. This time she noted that her movements were definitely more sluggish than normal. Unfortunately, she didn’t have time to figure out why, instead she hurriedly worked to cast another spell.

Misaki watched the intruder. She had been working out what she wanted to do with the boss when she had been alerted that an intruder had entered her halls. That intruder being this lone elf, who frankly seemed to be struggling against just two demons. Although this battle might drag on a while. They had exchanged blows a few times, and the elf’s shield had only recently dropped below a thousand points. Most of that damage had actually been inflicted by the warrior’s claws, but not by much. Those few spell hits had done almost the same amount of damage, in fewer overall strikes too. It seemed magic was quite potent, if those spells were just a little faster to cast this battle would have gone differently.

The elf got off another spell, and this time she watched as her own mage’s shield failed. Some of the fire got through and dealt a bit of damage, which was honestly nothing. Almost immediately the elf moved away from another strike, barely keeping the warrior out of range and chanting another spell. Misaki simply shook her non-existent head. As she watched the elf. Frankly, Misaki felt the Elf had gone about this battle all wrong. Yes, the mage was a threat, but the Elf should have used those spells on the warrior. As the warrior didn’t have any magical protection. Sure, her racial traits made her more physically resilient than the mage, and her class helped her a bit more, but those spells might have been more effective.

Reiko narrowly dodged another flash of claws. She was definitely getting slower, and her limbs were starting to feel heavy. She wasn’t sure as to why, but it was becoming a problem. She struck out with her staff, scoring a hit to the warrior’s belly and eliciting a grunt. It didn’t seem to do much beyond that, but the hit did give her another opening, and Reiko released another spell. A bolt of fire splashed over the mage, and without her shield, it did a little damage. Unfortunately, nothing serious.

Another bolt of light flared from the demon, and Reiko yelped again as the spell hit her, and the warrior was once again on her like lightning. A flurry of rapid strikes tore into her shield, and forced her to defend. Barely giving her time to focus on another spell.

With great difficulty she managed to break away after managing to score a hit with her staff. Giving her another chance to cast a spell. This battle was taking too long, and this time she decided to try an ice spell.

After a moment, she released a volley of ice spikes toward the mage. Three deadly projectiles slammed into the mage one after the other doing light damage, but one of them drew blood. Something she barely noted, before being forced to defend against the warrior.

That pattern continued for a few more exchanges before she finally scored a really good hit on the mage, and she went down. By then her limbs were heavy, and hard to move. It was getting quite hard to keep her distance. It proved to take most of her effort just to defend against the warrior, and then suddenly, as a claw swiped against her shield, it shattered. A moment later, before she could fully register that, she found herself knocked off her feet. With the demon pressing her against the ground. She gulped and flushed at the same time as she realized the danger.