Danmachi- Hell’s Forge

Bell slept like a rock after he ate and went to bed and I had no trouble getting to sleep either. The next morning I got up stretched and strapped on my new bracers before setting out for the dungeon. I made a brief stop by the hostess to enhance the ingredients and pick up the meal Syr made for me before setting off. It felt the same as usual when I went into the dungeon as the stone walls were just as bleak and quiet as normal. I didn't even bother testing my new bracers since I knew for a fact that these goblins couldn't even scratch the things.-

As I went deeper and deeper into the dungeon I came across three goblins and two groups of monsters that I separated and killed in a systematic fashion. I made sure to collect a whole lot of kobold hide using my technique before harvesting the stones and smoke from them. Thanks to not updating recently I felt like I had three drops of whatever that stuff was saved up for my next update which should be a good chunk of stats at that time.-

The fourth floor was just like before with the blue and green walls that got more and more green the closer to the fifth floor you got. I only ran into a single group of monsters there with it being three spear wielding kobolds and two club goblins that apparently didn't understand safety since they rushed ahead right when the spears were stabbing at me. I didn't have to move a muscle to watch two of the five die to their own side. The final three were stupid creatures that i threw cursed energy on making them panic thinking they were on fire before crushing their heads before they figured out that was not the case.-

Monsters didn't start growing brains until the seventh and eighth floors from what I was told so using trickery like this was way too easy. The fifth floor had a complete recoloring and theme as the rooms got bigger and the hallways shorter while the walls were a light green color. I was cautious as I walked through this area as there were four new monsters on these floors that were slightly tricky to deal with.-

Dungeon lizards were person sized lizards that hung from the ceilings and dropped down on unsuspecting adventurers. This was obviously not an ideal situation to be in and could very easily lead to death. The second monster was the frog shooters that were again person sized frogs but this time there was an unusual detail in that they only had a single eye in the center of their head. This monster attacked by sending their long, fast and sticky tongues at adventurers and trying to eat them whole. I was told it was an slow and gruesome death as the monster chews you while it tries to swallow.

The third monster, war shadows, were vaguely humanoid monsters with the standard two arms, legs and single head but that was where the similarities ended. Their bodies were tall and slender with three sharp claws at the end of each "hand" and their magic stone in the center of their heads on the outside without any other features beyond their black body. Unlike goblins and kobolds war shadows were fast and stealthy as their preferred method of attack was ambush. For an adventurer who was not careful enough this element of surprise proved fatal which unfortunately meant many newbies fell to them. I thankfully had the foresight to ask about what I would need to deal with in what part of the dungeon and knew to keep an eye to the shadows.-

The fourth new monster was not all that dangerous on it's own but had the bad habit of calling friends if injured and not killed quickly. Killer ants were basically just red fire ants scaled up to the size of people and besides the hard carapaces that prove to slow down slashing weapons they only became hard to handle if you either don't kill them fast enough or get rid of the bodies fast enough. In either of those scenarios they release a pheromone that attracts more of them and the stronger the presence of the pheromone the more come.-

To put it simply they are swarm tactics manifested and need to be dealt with swiftly to prevent getting overrun. My first customer turned out to be a war shadow that i spotted in a dark cubby against the right wall. 

"VVVVVVVV!" the monster hummed in anger when it realized that I had spotted it before charging at me claws extended.

The monster was much faster than any goblin or kobold for sure but I was prepared for this as I deflected the right claws with my left bracer which made a screeching sound like metal against metal. The left claws were redirected by my weapon as I cleaved the creatures head from it's shoulders with the sharp side of it. The body flailed about for a bit like a snakes would before stilling and allowing me to use my technique to make the things only drop, it's claws, a guaranteed thing. Once that was done I ripped the stone out of it's head which was an uncomfortable feeling but i ignored it since it ended the moment the monsters body went poof.-

Like I expected I got more smoke for killing this stronger monster and knew that I was probably going to chase after stronger and stronger monsters to get that extra large serving of smoke for my whole career. Grabbing my spoils and putting them in my bag I carefully move on and frown as I don't find any more monsters for quite a while.

'It's probably just bad luck.' I thought and took out my meal to eat and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was four soy eggs and rice with beef in it.

I ate quickly while keeping an eye and ear out for any newly spawning monsters but it was all quiet. I put away the box and no sooner stood up before hearing the sound of heavy footsteps approaching my position. I thought it was probably a frog shooter moving about and stood waiting at the ready only for a meaty dark hand to grab the frame of the hallway the sound was coming from and pull the rest of it's body into view.

"Oh fuck you Murphy!" I cursed as the bull headed minotaur stepped into the room.

Minotaurs were seven foot tall humanoid monsters with thick skin, bull heads and the ability to wield weapons, they were also level two monsters. My insane ass didn't immediately try and book it though in the face of this definitely too strong to fight monster. No I skipped flight and went straight to fight mode as I took a stance and flared my curse energy as adrenaline pumped through me.

"RAAAAOOO!" the minotaur bellowed and our dance of death began to play out.