C12: Dungeon Rats; Misfortune
Word count = 2977 on 12/29/2023
When the next morning arrived and the Knights of Camelot supposedly getting settled in Orario. Axel reviewed the information he was able to obtain from his goddess. Whomst by the way, claims to have fallen with a sickness due to the 'trauma' her posterior had received from him the previous day during his interrogation.
It seems that a group of immortals supporting the old gods under some mythical figure named Alaya and so the claim that all immortals are stuck at level 3 is technically true but also false as most immortals who live in Orario are those who 'unintentionally' became immortals. It's technically possible for them to long surpass level 3, or even 10 with their powers but since no one actually knows how strong one has to be to surpass Alaya and her so called counter force group. They willingly lower their heads while in Orario but only here as many immortals run rampant in various parts of the world. Though the head lowering is only for those who were warriors in the past, the various craftsmen, artists, singers and musicians that were somehow able to rise up to the same platform as legends/immortals could settle down and live relatively peaceful lives.
As for why this group has taken the role of suppressing their fellow immortals, they proclaim it is to preserve the sanctity of order and prepare a proper defense in some sort of forlorn prophecy in which the dungeon would rise up again and bring about the end times.
Another thing he learned is that Immortals aren't limited to the 3 magic spells because they don't have Falna. They either created or manifested their own magics and abilities through hard work or some bespoken divine bloodline that may or may not be true. As for Raikou herself, she was a powerful warrior in the past but after a moment of inspiration by another immortal before her time, she changed her ways to settle down in Orario and before that, wherever the wind took her.
On the other hand, Astolfo did lie about the merchant caravan escort job, Astolfo was more someone who was raised in a cruel environment and idolized knights before becoming one. But after that, and meeting so many people and cultures, she got hooked on cute things and then was split between the bloodthirsty monster slayer and champion of people versus the cute and cuddly person she is. Which is why she needs to 'destress' every once in a while to cool her more ruthless personality.
As for outside Orario, It's said that Rakia had been under the control of 3 immortals, one of whomst is king, another is his half brother and the third is an assassin working for the king. They ensure that Rakia is at peace after so many years of turmoil. Rumors are that the king is quite lustful and had at one point made a law to 'taste' newly wed women but the half brother punished the king for his foolish nature and the law was abolished. (get a digital cookie if anyone can name all 3 'servants')
On the other hand, there is a place called the Tower of Mysticism that was organized by a collection of immortal mages who sought further truth and research into the nature of magic and even the trifecta falna was made by them so that adventurers could be equal to gods under immortals as well. Afterall, why should the gods bother in creating a second falna when their own design works just fine and already took so long. (d*ck wizard and other casters)
Axel shakes his head after summarizing all the information he learned last night as it is still a lot to take in but he will come around to it eventually but for now, he has a dungeon dive to prepare for. After completing his regular morning exercises, he suited up and prepared to head out to the dungeon again.
He arrives in a few minutes and he notices that he got a few more strange glances from a select few people who are regularly observing him the past week but this time feels different as he sees them scuttling about, as if sharing news or something. casually hanging around the entrance of the dungeon. Some of them who were sitting down get up upon seeing him which makes him a bit nervous but he also recognizes that as an adventurer with primarily C grade stats then as long as he isn't bothered by them then he will leave them be. He even quickly contemplates going to even lower floors if he should try to escape or just in general an escape plan as the conversation he had with his goddess the week before flows through his mind. He has long noticed these folk looking at him weird but they haven't done anything before but now they are acting strange ... .or at least weirder than usual.
He soon enters the dungeon and speeds through the first 4 floors with ease as a single slap or light kick kills all the goblins or kobolds as he moves further. He disregards the cores as he wants to focus on War Shadows and Frog shooters for a better payout and less weight on him.
It takes him roughly half an hour to get there and he begins hunting them actively as he has already gotten used to the 8th-9th floor variants. Due to their monster's higher agility, they have a weaker endurance and so typically a single casual punch is able to take them down as compared to him trying out to outspeed the war shadow during his first time around on the 5th floor. . That was his mistake but he knows better now and can take them down with ease after dodging their initial strikes as their simple brains believe that a single strike is enough to take down an adventurer like him and don't expect him to dodge or retaliate.
As for the Frog Shooters, He uses loose rocks he can get to throw at them which causes them to dodge out of the way since their bodies are even weaker except their tongues. This dodge allows him to briefly close the distance and so they will try to distance again while shooting out their tongues but a few dodges and he can easily take them down.
He spends his time repeating the hunting process on the 5th floor. Though the scene of the bustling adventurers lays on his mind as he chooses to slow down his pace a bit to ensure he is still in good condition later on. He ran past a ton of people but who knows where anyone has been since he arrived here. He tried walking backwards a bit to see if anyone actually was following him but he didn't find anyone. So he steps into the 6th floor and takes down a group of frog shooters who were seemingly waiting in ambush for adventurers but he effectively beat them down into pulp and harvested their cores.
He proceeds forward, taking down a few war shadows and collecting their cores before finally reaching the 7th floor again. During the past week, he had hunted a few killer ants and other beasties down here. When he was first here, he had crippled one killer ant with his dagger and then proceeded to fact check how many punches were required to break through their shells. Back when his stats were in the 700s or B grade, it took roughly around 10. But now as he repeats the experiment without crippling it's legs, he was able to achieve a similar result of breaking it's armored skin with only 3-4 punches now that he has stats in the late 900s. Though it's still a bit faster for him to just use his little dinky knife to cut the limbs and then deliver a killing blow than actually land the few punches due to having to dodge the killer ants attacks. Not to mention that war shadows and frog shooters are still in the surroundings.
After half an hour, he takes a small break while he can before the dungeon decides to not like that and spawns more monsters which prompts Axel to run towards the 8th floor entrance as he is already bored of the 7ths floor monsters. He moves onto the 8th and immediately sees the slightly different colored monsters that are the variant versions of goblins, kobolds and frog shooters that seem to simply mingle about as the only sounds coming from the surroundings is their occasional growl is one monster gets too close to another that isn't the same type.
Axel meanwhile jumps into this group and wails on them freely as a single sweeping kick can typically take 2 or 3 monsters down when they are bunched up like this but otherwise it would be less effective. He dodges a few claws and spiked tongues and then finishes the group off, collecting their cores and absorbing one of them to regain a bit of stamina. He spends a few more hours in hunting down various monsters which are far more crowded down here as he can encounter up to 3 war shadows at a time and receives minor cuts due to being on the verge of dodging the various attacks.
As his day ends on a high note so far with his sack being full of cores, he begins to make his way back up to the when he hears snickers sound out to the side of him once he reaches the 5th floor. It's where a group of 10 adventurers came out from around the corner of where Axel heard the snicker from.
"Well, well, well. If it isn't the newest prodigal son himself. Making tons of money are we? Why don't you hand over those cores you just collected" One of them 'bravely' speaks up to Axel who is confused.
"Your group is here too, war shadows and frog shooters are all around you so why bother me when they are just right there. If you were waiting at the higher floors for my return back up, I would have understood. But we are on the 5th floor, hunt them yourself. By the looks of your group, it is likely a few of you are at least level 2, which means you can easily make money from monsters, the fact that you don't.. Are you stupid?" Axel simply retorts as he is truly confused by their intellect.
"Does it matter asshole, hand over the cores, your armor and your backpack or we'll kill you" Tic marks appear on their collective foreheads when he calls them stupid but they remain relatively calm as they only take out their weapons instead of madly charging at him. In fact, one of their group is wielding a spiky hammer and has been hitting the dungeon walls, causing cracks and breaks randomly. They just started doing that but it's likely that they have already been doing this since they first came here to camp out. By destroying the walls like this, it prevents the creation/spawning of more monsters for a period of time until the walls are fixed.
Axel drops his backpack and takes a fighting stance as he doesn't want to under-estimate this group since they could very well be deadbeat level 2 adventurers which means they are roughly on par with his higher S grade stats that might have already broken through to SS but until he updates falna, he won't feel it except the bit he actually absorbed.
Axel Whispers, "Shadows of the Abyss, I AM the Endless, Rapture of Power and Possessor of All that Belongs to Others.". He is taking them seriously as they have been stalking him for so long now. He plans to fight for quite some time as unless they are level 1 like him, he is unlikely to finish fast against them.
They see him muttering something while taking a fighting stance, "you shitty brat, you think you're hot shit just because you made some money and made it to the 8th or 9th floor?" After he finishes talking, the whole group of 10 rushes towards him. With Axel's current positioning, there are a few tunnels all around him and a wall to his side which is now to his back after he took up the stance. Seeing them rushing to him with all sorts of weapons. Three wield straight swords like a knight whilst wearing leather armor. Two are using a pairs of daggers and a lightweight leather vest like Axel's own. One has a mace in hand, an impractical weapon as it's just an over-glorified hammer but with more imbalance due to its design style. There are two archers who are taking aim while the last is the spiked hammer person who has just finished his work and is late to join the others as well as the one mage. If they are all from one Familia then it's an impressive group overall but Axel just feels they are slow.
Axel doesnt plan to just sit around and wait for them to come to him, he rushes forward as well and they are surprised by his speed as they obviously weren't watching how he fought and thought he just got lucky against the stronger monsters or have a hidden weapon in his backpack. After all, who is so suicidal as to use their fists and feet in the dungeon to fight. So they likely waited for him here after familiarizing with his supposed schedule, they took a look and found him. If they risked it to actually study his combat style then they would have learned that he is pretty fast and quickly sidesteps the thrust attack from the first guy's sword as his fist meets that guy's gut and is knocked backwards into the mace man and quickly parrying the other two while the knockoff assassins takes a stab at Axel but while training with the Takemikazuchi Familia, he was also taught a bit on how to handle a knife like his own and even defend against one should he ever face another with a knife. Back then, they didn't explain the reason for this teaching and he got put into many compromising positions as a result but he realizes now how useful it is.
As such, he steadies himself before moving both his hands, one to grab the knife hand of his attacker while the other to thrust at the attacker's elbow, this makes it so the knife arm bends to stab into their own chest. They have a look of shock but they aren't dead just yet.. Axel releases them as he has to dodge an arrow from the bow user in the back as well as the attack of the second assassin who simply receives a strike to the jaw that confuses them as they almost pass out but are luckily able to regain their composure. He then has to block a coordinated attack from the mace user and one of the swordsmen. With the sword, he parries it with his vambraces while dodging the mace itself. He gets a good kick at the swordsman's leg which makes him fall on Axel's knee to his chin before Axel has to retreat to dodge the spike hammer. The spikes themselves have been mostly ruined by the damage to the dungeon but blunt spikes will still hurt a lot as they seem very strong.
The first assassin, who Axel thought would still be out of commission for a while, gets a lucky cut on his leg before being socked in the jaw and passing out. Yet by doing just that, he was open for another counterattack by the mace man who hits him on his back and knocks him forward against an adjacent wall. This creates an opening to retreat if he chose to but he is actually annoyed by these idiots.
He retreats just enough to take a sip of potion whilst dodging another arrow. The archers are pretty incompetent as it takes them forever to line up a shot but granted, they are trying to avoid hitting their teammates. Real amateur hour over there as they seem to have little coordination which makes Axel think they are just random members who teamed up this time around. Axel's leg heals up slowly while the pain in his back is decreased as he retakes a combat stance. The First swordsman in the lead curses and goes for a swing with his sword once more and Axel parries it again before punching his gut once more, making him lose his breath for a moment before he gets a broken nose from another punch. The other two swordsman bring him back and are about to continue charging at him as the mage has finally finishes his incantation and summons an earth wall behind Axel but due to the line of sight problem, the aforementioned wall is horizontally placed to only really cover the dungeon wall which means that Axel isn't actually blocked in. The others curse the mage for being incompetent when the leader grabs a sack from their backpack and unveils two black orb.
"Damned Brat, see how you enjoy this beauty." He says and he smacks the orbs as if it was a disciplinary father and it changes colors to red before he throws it at Axel. He does this twice but the first orb misses Axel and lands behind him, not too close but not too far. Axel kicks the second back at the group which smacks into the swordsman's chin and their group panics, trying to escape before both orbs explode which is something that Axel didn't expect.