Newly Summoned Demoness - Chapter 3 – Escape (Patreon)

Elania didn’t slow down as she ran blindly through the dimly lit maze of corridors, her heart pounding against her chest with every adrenaline-fueled step. The sounds of combat between the cultists and the holy knight faded behind her. Numerous intersections and heavy looking closed doors dotted the hallways, but she felt the need to put as much distance between her and the chaos as possible.

The further she traveled, the less cared for the dungeon seemed to become, and the torch scones became sparse, only placed at the intersections. Despite the fear gripping her, she couldn’t help but marvel at how she was still navigating through the darkness so effortlessly.

It felt like her eyes had somehow adapted to see in the low light, and the bizarre change felt connected to the race moniker her status had shown.

At least if they were going to change her race, it came with perks. Right? Right?

She skidded to a stop as voices ahead bit through her internal panic, and then turned and shot down one of the secondary corridors. The hall was pitch black but lined with a dozen doors on either side. When she reached the end of the hall and went to take a turn, she found that it was a dead end. Pang of panic filled her; the voices were getting closer.

The end of the corridor had just enough room for her to tuck in and hide. Two figures passed by the lit intersection at a run, and a clear shout of “Intruder!” sent her panic through the roof, but then a trio of cultists continued in the same direction. Their robes were different from the black ones earlier—crimson adorned with black symbols—and they brandished wicked-looking daggers.

One of them glanced down the tunnel but didn’t see her.

[Stealth Rank E has been unlocked and slotted.]

Thank you, merciful and helpful system gods, but why couldn’t the damn thing come with a user manual? Elania blinked. Maybe it did, but she hadn’t exactly had time to think or try to find one. She glanced down at herself, she was covered in red patches that were going to make her look like an abuse victim later, and she was distinctly naked.

The sound of the cultists had disappeared, so she popped out of her hiding place and tried the first door. It was locked. The second opened, but was more darkness, the forms of unused old furniture stacked for storage filling the space. The third was the same. Each one was locked or unused storage and she started to feel more anxious as she neared the light of the intersection.

The last door on the right opened and the insides of the room were lit by a small candle. The room looked lived in, with a small cot and a few pieces of furniture. She shut the door behind her when the room began to shake heavily, causing the candle to splatter itself on the ground and plunging the room into a pitch black.

The shaking stopped almost as soon as it started. She didn’t know much about earthquakes, but being underground during one seemed bad with a capital B.

Elania froze. Earthquake? Was that really it? Had the fighting earlier just reached another level?

She swallowed and moved toward the wardrobe and yanked it open. The darkness didn’t bother her, but the choices presented were limited; there were only a few sets of black robes hanging from a rod. She grabbed one and pulled the thing over her head. That solved the glaring problem of running around completely naked.

There was a sharp-looking dagger and leather sheath hanging from a loop as well, and she slid it into the robe’s oversized pockets. There was a heavy black book on the dresser by the cot, but she discarded it as not being useful and too heavy.

Since there wasn’t much else useful in the room, she focused on the robes. Snatching one out, she considered using it as some type of knapsack, but a second heavy resonation through the room sent dust falling from overhead, eliciting a coughing spree.

She needed to get out. Immediately.

Grabbing the two spare robes, she left the sparse quarters behind and reentered the hallway. The torch sconce had gone ajar, and the lights had gone out. At the next intersection, she nearly slipped and fell on a pool of blood. Her heart jumped as she realized she had nearly tripped over two bodies that were splayed out on both sides of the corridor.

The idea of looting them came to mind, but another shake encouraged her to hurry with her escape. The halls began to devolve into a zig-zagging mess of intersections and the state of disrepair of the dungeon became more evident the further she went.

After what felt like an eternity of fleeing, she stumbled upon a dilapidated gateway that seemed promising. The door was composed of thick bands of rusting iron and hung precariously off its hinges as though it hadn’t been disturbed in centuries. She took a deep breath and darted through the narrow opening.

On the other side was a completely different world.

The ethereal landscape was starkly different from the dark tunnels of the dungeon. An otherworldly glow illuminated everything; bioluminescent mosses blanketed the cavern walls and ceiling, radiating with a soothing blue-green light that filled the expansive space with an eerie tranquility.

The ground was a vibrant tapestry of flora; patches of fluorescent purple fungi intermingled with softer shades of green moss that seemed in the process of working its way up the walls to meet with its cousin on the ceiling. Other shades and colors appeared in patches, and as she made her way deeper, everything seemed to dance with luminescent colors in response to her passing.

The colors were stunning, and under other circumstances, she’d have loved to take the time to examine everything in detail.

Pushing into the cavern elicited a pained curse after a few dozen steps. The ground was mostly rock and sharp pebbles, which had painfully poked at her bare feet. Sounds of the combat had trailed off, but she didn’t consider stopping, she couldn’t afford to. The cavern was wide open and there wasn’t anywhere to hide.

It took her nearly ten minutes to reach the far side, the cavern narrowing until it opened up into an identical chamber with another exit on the far side. Frustration gnawed at her. Just how large was the cave, and how long was it going to take to make her way out? There was a subtle incline which gave her a modicum of hope; perhaps she was indeed ascending, however slowly.

Elania passed through three more chambers before coming to an intersection that forked in two different directions. One path seemed to go upward, so she picked it almost immediately. Distance was hard to gauge, but it felt like she’d covered at least a few kilometers since leaving the cultists’ dungeon. She had assumed that the cave might not have such a straightforward layout as she had first assumed.

A shiver of fear filled her as she realized the cave might not even lead to a way out. The cultists could have set their lair up at the front of the cave and if it was the only way out, she was still well and truly trapped, no matter how far she made it.

The Bishop’s words replayed in her mind. ‘Lead us to victory against the Overworld.’

She looked up at the glowing ceiling, a frown creasing her lips. Overworld. As opposed to, say, an Underworld? A fucking Underdark? She’d never been very religious, but she considered offering a prayer to something for her chances of finding a way out.

Minutes turned into hours as she continued to trudge through the caverns. Whenever an intersection presented itself, she took whichever one looked like it would lead upwards, or if they had the same incline, alternated between left and right at each one in the hopes of not looping back in a circle.

Her feet hurt, and she was feeling exhausted. She wasn’t sure how far she’d traveled when suddenly the light from the moss suddenly stopped. Panic filled her, and she immediately searched for a cubby-hole to hide in along the cave wall. It took a few seconds for her vision to adjust, but the lack of light wasn’t going to hamper her… but what had caused the change?

The fungus continued to glow, and she realized the area she was standing in was lit up more than the rest of the cave, singling her hiding spot out. The faint luminescence followed her as she decided she couldn’t stay in on spot if it was going to light her up like a target…or intruder?

A wave of exhaustion washed over her, and she knew she was reaching her body’s limit, anyway. The only problem was that she’d not seen very many places that were welcoming. There had been a rocky chamber that she’d passed by earlier. That’d get her out of the biome and the glow that now seemed to follow her but had its own issue. If something cornered her in it, there was no way out.

It was that or stay in the open and hope nothing noticed her…

The way her feet felt, she didn’t think she’d be able to run or sprint far if chased, though. She quickly decided to go with the more hidden option.

Backtracking to the transition zone, she easily found the chamber she’d spotted. It wasn’t much, but at least she’d be harder to spot and there was a choke point to defend.

She set one of the robes she’d collected on the ground and sat on it. As soon as her feet were off the ground, she realized how badly they hurt. She’d never been what someone might consider an ‘athlete,’ but she had kept up with her fitness with morning jogs or bike rides whenever possible. Walking ten or twenty kilometers shouldn’t have bothered her…except she usually had shoes on.

Examining the bottom of her feet, she winced. Blisters were forming and there were several ugly looking scraps and scratches. Touching the skin brought a wince of pain. She was well and truly fucked.

They probably didn’t even have antibiotics. Maybe healing magic? She needed antiseptic, but all she had was what she had collected from the cultists and she had no idea if any of the flora in the caverns would be medicinal. She didn’t even have the faintest clue about how to go about figuring that out, either.

She didn’t even have water to rinse the cuts with.

Leaning back against the cave wall, she let out a defeated sigh. Maybe the status screen would offer her some other options?

“Status.”

[You have previously unread messages.]

[ ???? - Human - Lvl 33 has been defeated!]

[You have gained multiple levels!]

[Improvised Weaponry Rank E has been unlocked and slotted.]

[Stealth Rank E has been unlocked and slotted.]

It was nice that it summarized the latest messages for her, and she read them all more carefully than during her rapid flight out of the dungeon. She scrolled the ethereal panel down to the status screen.

[Status: Elania Reyes]

[Level 5 Lesser Demon (Summoned Potency 9999+)]

[Karma: 12345]

[Power: 4/100]

[Skills: Locked]

[Perks: 1] (Summoned from Another World!)

[The requirement to unlock ‘Skills’ is to have earned a slotted skill.]

[You have sufficient requirements to unlock Skills. Unlock Skills now? Y/N]

She noted that her ‘Power’ had gone up slightly, whatever that meant. She pressed the ‘Yes’ button and the status screen blinked, them shrank into nothing before a new one popped up in its place.

[Class: None]

[Skill Slots: 2]

[Slotted Skills: Improvised Combat (Rank E), Stealth (Rank E)]

[Affinities: (Demonic), (Mana)]

[Magical: Demonic Aura (Rank E) (Activated), Mana Manipulation (Rank E)]

[Physical: Improvised Combat (Rank E), Darkvision (Rank C) (Activated), Stealth (Rank E)]

[Mundane: Identify (Rank E), Universal Speech (Rank S), Reading (Rank A), Writing (Rank B)]

Her highest skills were in talking, reading, and writing. Great. That was probably why she perceived everyone as speaking English, but none of them were really going to be helpful in her current situation. Was that because she was a college student?

Where were her ‘wake-up-quick-or-be-late-for-class,’ or ‘survival-cooking-with-ramen!’ skillsets? Granted, she didn’t really expect those to be skills, but what she had received seemed sparse. Surely she had more talents from the real world that should have translated over?

Real world.

Elania hugged her knees and felt a pinch of panic threaten her. What had just happened was real. If she was going to not die, she couldn’t treat this as a game, even if the world resembled something like one.

Four skills stood out to her: [Demonic Aura], [Mana Manipulation], [Darkvision], and [Identify] seemed like her basic skills. The first three were likely related to her stated race of Lesser Demon. [Demonic Aura] and [Darkvision] appeared to be toggleable, but she didn’t remember ever turning them on.

[Darkvision] at least explained her ability to see in the dark.

Elania cleared her throat, a hoarse croak disturbing the silence. Biting her lip, she decided to try to test things out. “Demonic Aura, Deactivate!”

The noise of her voice made her wince. The sound echoed around the chamber chaotically, and she realized just how the sound seemed to permeate the caverns. When the echoes finally died, she realized it was sort of a bad idea to broadcast her presence.

To top it off, nothing actually happened. The [Demonic Aura] skill remained active. Her cheeks heated in embarrassment. Had she really just acted like some Shonen manga character, trying to toggle their skill?

She tried to focus her mind on turning it off, but that didn’t work either.

[Demonic Aura - Lvl 1 (Activated)]

Somehow, she was doing it wrong. The cultists had been chanting something to use their magic. Maybe she needed to do so as well? Except she had no spell book or manual on what to chant, so that’d be a non-starter. Did all the skills and magic follow the same set of rules even?

A sense of defeat washed over her, and she rested her forehead on her knees. She hadn’t cried from the shock and fear of the events yet, but now it seemed to catch up to her all at once. Her eyes began to water then stream.

She just wanted to go home.