Free Web NovelChapter 9: I Think I Just Got Addicted to Leveling Up
Before the dark mouth in the mountain’s flank, Elsa rested one of her blades against her shoulder and looked from me to Alice and back.
"One last thing before we go down. The moment we cross that threshold, I don’t step in." She must have read the question on my face, because she went on before I could ask it. "I stay with you, I watch your backs, and if anything comes at us that doesn’t belong to the dungeon itself — a cave-in, some accident, someone stupid enough to have followed us — I’ll deal with it. But the monsters in there are your problem. Not mine."
She handed me a sword. A plain iron blade, no flourish to it at all, so ordinary the System hadn’t even bothered to give it a name when I’d taken it in hand.
"That’s it?" I asked.
"That’s it." She gave me that little smirk I was starting to know. "You have to face hard situations on your own and use them to grow. Nobody gets strong off good gear. You get strong when you’ve got nothing but yourself, and you have to manage anyway."
A torch in one hand and the sword in the other, I stepped through the arch first. Alice followed, her own torch raised, and the daylight vanished behind us as if someone had cut it off with a knife.
The cold hit me at once. And with it, the mana.
"Eye of Infinity."
The world tipped over. All around us, the golden filaments I’d been seeing since the first night soaked into the rock — but here, they weren’t still. They flowed, all of them, in the same direction: downward, deeper, toward something far ahead that drew them in slowly, the way a drain pulls water.
And just like that, I knew how to move forward.
"We don’t need to look for the way," I said. "We just follow the current."
"The current?"
"The mana flows toward the heart of the dungeon." I pointed down the descending corridor. "A concentration so dense, down there, that it carved all of this out, and now it pulls in the mana from everything around it. That’s what gives birth to the monsters, and what feeds them. All I have to do is trace the thread back to know where we’re going."
"So the closer we get..."
"The stronger they are." Alexia had taught me that, perched on her ladder with a book against her hip, her eyes lighting up whenever she explained something. A small pang tightened my chest. No. Pull yourself together. I pushed the image away. "Here, right by the entrance, we’re as far from the heart as we can get. What we’ll run into is the weakest this dungeon has to offer. The deeper we go, the higher it climbs."
"Then we may as well start easy," Alice said with a small smile — and at that exact moment, the light of our torches caught something ahead, where the corridor widened out.
Slimes.
Six of them, pale and translucent, barely knee-high, quivering across the stone as they dragged themselves toward us without the slightest hurry. No eyes, no mouth, nothing but a wobbling green jelly. Of course, I thought, and one corner of my mouth lifted in spite of me. Slimes. I’d written these things by the hundred, at three in the morning, never believing in them for a second. The tutorial monster, the genre’s oldest cliché. And here were six very real ones crawling toward me through the dark of a cave.
"Kuro." Alice’s voice had dropped lower, more focused. She held a hand out toward me, palm open. "Sacred Surge."
A warm light burst from her palm and wrapped around me, ran down my arms, my legs, all the way to my fingertips — and everything, suddenly, was lighter. My limbs answered before I even thought to move them, the air seemed thinner, my heart beat slower while everything else sped up. It was as if someone had lifted a weight I’d been carrying my whole life without knowing it. So that was what her blessing did: it didn’t make me stronger, it made me quicker.
I didn’t wait to learn more. I charged.
The first slime tensed and sprang straight at me. My Eye slowed the moment, drew its path before it had even taken it, and my body followed: I ducked my head, the sword already raised above me, and the thing impaled itself on the iron while I slid underneath. It split in two and dropped into two puddles that twitched once before going still.
The second had no better luck. Nor did the other four. The Sacred Surge carried me, my Eye stripped them of any surprise, and the rest I did on instinct — a step, an arc of the blade, and one less slime. I didn’t feel like I was fighting. I felt like I was playing.
The instant the last one dropped, three blue windows opened in quick succession in front of my eyes.
[ Level Up ]
> Level 2 — +1 to all stats, +1 free point
> Level 3 — +1 to all stats, +1 free point
> Level 4 — +1 to all stats, +1 free point
I felt the difference before I’d even finished reading. A rush of strength, everywhere at once, as if every bolt in my body had just been tightened half a turn. My hands, my legs, even my breathing — all of it steadier than a minute ago. Three levels at once. For six puddles of jelly.
"Kuro!" Alice was already on me. "Are you okay? You’re not hurt? Are you sure?"
She took my arm, turned it over, inspected my hands, my chest, every spot that might have taken a hit, with a thoroughness that had nothing worried left in it and everything stubborn. I let her. And, without quite knowing why, I looked away — because the way she pressed against me, her hands on me, dragged me back without warning to that room, up in the palace, and to what had happened there the morning we left.
"I’m fine," I said, my throat a little dry. "Not a scratch."
"Good." She looked up, and her smile was soft. "I’m glad you’re not hurt. Keep being careful, all right?"
"Yeah. Thanks..."
She straightened, and it was then I saw she had that particular light in her eyes too.
"Did you level up as well?" I asked.
"Yes." She looked down at her own hands, as if discovering them. "Level 3. I..." She gave a small, disbelieving laugh. "It’s an insane feeling, Kuro. You really feel your body change, become more. It’s almost... addictive."
Level 3, I thought. And me at level 4, off the exact same six slimes.
I said nothing out loud. I already knew the answer: my Divine Blessing. Where hers gave her five times the normal experience, mine, once it had evolved, gave me ten. With every monster, I pulled a length ahead of her — and she was already pulling lengths ahead of anyone else.
"What is it?" Alice said.
"Nothing. I was just lost in thought. Let’s keep going."
We followed the current of mana to a long run of rock in uneven steps, plunging into the dark — the natural stairway down to the floor below. And there too, a group of slimes guarded the way.
This time, I didn’t wait for them.
"Sacred Surge," Alice breathed behind me, and the light took me again. But instead of planting myself in front of them to let them come, I walked straight into the middle of them.
"Dance of the Widow."
My body began to turn. I wasn’t charging in a straight line anymore: I slid between them, spiraling, shoulder low, my blade tracing long horizontal arcs that took a slime with every pass. One tried to cut off my path — I pivoted around it without slowing and opened it along the flank as I went by. Another tensed to spring; it was already cut in two before it left the ground. I danced among them, and they couldn’t so much as brush me. When I finally stopped, breathing hard, not one of them was left standing, and not a single drop of jelly had splattered my skin.
[ Level Up ]
> Level 5 — +1 to all stats, +1 free point
> Level 6 — +1 to all stats, +1 free point
That rush of strength through my whole body again, sharper each time. I started down the stairway.
The floor below was colder, darker, and the mana ran thicker there. Another group of slimes was waiting, and buoyed by everything I’d just strung together, I charged in without thinking.
Ffiiuuu.
The one in front, the nearest, didn’t spring like the others. It reared back — and spat, hurling a part of its own mass straight at me. The surprise froze me for a fraction of a second; on reflex, trying to knock it aside, I threw my fist at it to swat it away.
Then the pain crashed down all at once.
I dropped my sword and I screamed.
"AAAAGHH—!"
I looked down at my hand. The skin was blistering before my eyes, blisters swelling and bursting one after another, and where the spit had landed the flesh seemed to melt, to hiss, to hollow out like wax held too close to a flame. Acid. An acid slime. The thing had coated my hand in acid.
And then came the smell of plants.
"Garden of Salvation."
Beneath our feet, the stone vanished under thick green grass, white flowers opened in a ring around us in a light that came from nowhere, and where it touched me the pain in my hand ebbed away, slowly, the blisters receding as it spread.
Idiot, I told myself, still ragged for breath. You took a few levels and decided you were untouchable. You charged head-down at monsters you didn’t know. That’s exactly how people die.
The acid slime was already charging, and my sword was on the ground. No matter. I grabbed it with both hands — and I screamed a second time as my raw palms sank into its burning jelly — then hurled it with everything I had into the others before throwing myself down to grab my blade.
This time, I fought for real.
"Eye of Infinity. Dance of the Widow."
I read every glob of spit before it left, stepped clear, let the Dance carry me from one to the next — turning, slipping aside, biting into every opening. Not a single jet touched me. I danced among them like a spider around its prey, and one by one, I silenced them all.
[ Level Up ]
> Level 7 — +1 to all stats, +1 free point
> Level 8 — +1 to all stats, +1 free point
"Kuro!" Alice rushed at me, white-faced, and this time it wasn’t thoroughness, it was pure panic. She took my hand between hers again, turned it over, felt along it, her fingers shaking a little. "Your hand, show me your hand, does it still burn, is it—"
"Alice. I’m fine." I closed my fingers over hers to stop them. "Look, it’s already healed. Your garden took all of it." I held her gaze. "I was careless. I know. It won’t happen again."
She stared at me a second too long, then nodded, slowly, and we moved on.
The next group, I went at differently. No more charging head-down. I hung back long enough to let my Eye go over them one by one — looking for the one that would rear up to spit, the one that might do something else again, anything unexpected. Only then did I move in, careful, methodical, hitting the most dangerous one first and always keeping a wall at my back. Each slime called for its own answer, and I gave it to them one at a time, no rushing. None of them touched me.
[ Level Up ] freeweɓnovel.cøm
> Level 9 — +1 to all stats, +1 free point
I turned back to Alice, and for once I smiled, openly.
"See, this time I’m not hu—"
I stopped dead.
On the ceiling, right above her, a green mass had peeled away from the rock and was falling. Straight down at her. And she hadn’t seen it.
Everything in me collapsed at once.
I tore off the ground before I’d even decided to move, and the System answered the instinct.
[ New Skill Acquired ]
[Sprint - Lv. 1 ] (active)
And I felt it rise through my whole body — a burning charge that shot up from my gut to my legs, my muscles gorging on a speed I’d never known they had. The ground blurred faster beneath my feet, the air began to whistle past my ears, and for a fraction of a second I thought it would be enough.
It wasn’t enough.
I saw the slime falling, I saw the distance, and I knew already, with a certainty that tore through my chest, that I’d get there a fraction of a second too late. And in that fraction of a second, it wasn’t Alice I saw.
It was Alexia.
The corridor. The withered thing curled on the flagstones, the skin drawn tight over the bones, the hands shriveled into claws. The body emptied of all life — a girl who’d been talking to me two weeks ago, laughing in the middle of her books.
Not her.
Not again. Not a second time. Not her, not Alice, NOT ALICE—
Something broke in me, and what was left had nothing reasonable in it anymore. Not enough, my whole being screamed as it threw itself forward. Not enough, not enough, STILL NOT ENOUGH. I’d sworn it. Sworn nothing would happen to her, that I’d do everything, anything at all — and I was about to watch her die three steps away from me, right in front of my eyes, like Alexia. So I gave everything. Everything this world had ever handed me, I threw into that one lunge, keeping nothing back, ready to burn myself down to nothing if that was what it took.
And the System heard me.
[ Skill Evolution ]
[ Sprint - Lv. 1 ] -> [ Dash - Lv. 1 ] (active)
In front of me, my Eye drew a line — a thread of light, clean, linking where I was to where I had to be, the exact trajectory, the only one, to make it in time.
"Dash."
The world tore open.
I followed the line, my sword streaking with it, and I crossed the space between us as if it had never existed. The blade split the slime in midair, just above Alice’s head.
But I hadn’t had time to push her clear. So I did the only thing left: I threw myself over her, back bared, and the pieces of the slime rained down on me. The acid bit into the skin of my back through my shirt, and I screamed a third time — but this time I gritted my teeth and didn’t let go.
Because when I opened my eyes, it was her face I saw, a few inches from mine. Unharmed. Not a mark. And despite the burn eating at my back, I smiled.
"Glad... you’re okay."
"You idiot!" Her cheeks had flushed crimson all at once, and her voice trembled between anger and something else, something far more fragile. "You— you threw yourself— for—" She couldn’t finish. "Take better care of yourself, damn it! Do you hear me? Better care of yourself!"
She rolled me gently onto my side, and I let her, out of breath. My shirt was nothing but a ruined, eaten-through rag across the back; the cold air of the cave bit at the raw skin, and I heard her catch her breath when she saw the burns. Then her hands settled on them.
The warmth of the Garden spread under her fingers, slow and soft, closing the wounds one by one down my spine, and she started talking again, low, without stopping — a stream of murmured reproaches that had none of the earlier anger left in them.
"Never again. Do you hear me? Never again do you do something like that." Her fingers were trembling against my back. "You only had to shout at me to move, and I’d have moved. You didn’t have to throw yourself under it." Her voice cracked for a second. "Idiot. My idiot. Offering up your own skin for mine, as if it were worth less. As if I could stand to watch you get eaten in my place." She pressed a little harder, as though to push the words in along with the healing. "Stay whole. That’s all I’m asking of you. Stay whole, stay close to me, and everything will be fine."
I said nothing. I didn’t have the strength, and there was nothing to say anyway. I stayed there, forehead against the ground, feeling her warmth run the length of my back and her murmur wrap around me, and for the first time in a long while, despite the pain, I felt perfectly safe.
And that was when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw it.
[ Level Up ]
> Level 10 — +1 to all stats, +1 free point
[ THRESHOLD REACHED ]
Select a skill to unlock from those offered.
