The Arcane Archer - Chapter 40 Dungeon

Riding a horse without any experience was very painful on my butt I must say. A few hours mixed with a very bumpy ride and Ava not allowing us to take any breaks results in me jumping off the horse as soon as Ava finally said we’ve arrived at our destination.

“So why are we here exactly?” I asked while looking around the area. “There’s only large rocks and dead grass here. No animals or monsters to hunt.”

She looked over at me before getting off of her own horse.

“That’s cause you’re not looking for the right thing. Look for a stone door.”

“A door?”

“Yes, a door.”
for visiting.

She started feeding her horse an apple.

“U-huh I’ll look for that random door you’re speaking about in the middle of nowhere.”

She continued feeding the horse.

I waited a bit for her to actually say something or give more of a hint, but I eventually sighed and look for this supposed door. Looking around, I didn’t see an immediate door, so I went to the only thing that made sense for a stone door to be at. The obvious large rock right next to me.

It took a few seconds but once I got to the back of the rock, I figured out what she meant by doors. By doors, she meant a large doorway in the rock leading down beneath the ground itself.

“Found the door!” I yelled out to Ava.

I continued looking at the door before slowly creeping forwards to try and see what was down the stairs. As I got closer and closer to the point, I had my head inside, Ava suddenly appeared right next to me and scared me by yelling “BOO!” right into my ear.

Almost falling straight into the doorway, I threw a firebolt at Ava in retaliation for scaring me like that while she continued to just laugh. A few seconds passed before she wiped a fake tear away and then cleared her throat to start explaining.

“As you should know but don’t with your horrible knowledge of everything, this is a dungeon. Dungeons are a failed experiment of humans many many centuries ago that tried using the mana of the world to constantly create creatures and monsters to fight for them. However, it did not work as plan as when they created them, they forgot to think of a way to control these creatures made of mana and just assumed that they would be able to as they were their creators. Now they’re just left here as we assume that if we would destroy them, a gigantic explosion would go off with an undeterminable size that could potentially be as small as a pebble to as big as the world itself. Now it is our jobs as hunters to constantly deal with these mana creatures to make sure they don’t come out and spread destruction wherever they go in a mindless mana rage. You ready for your first Hunt?”

“Definitely!” I said in response as I immediately thought of how useful this would be for me.

Pulling out her weapons which was a dagger in each hand, she started making her way down the stairs. Following, I noticed that to a certain point, everything was just completely black. But after you got that point, torches along the wall lit up and illuminated the area.

A bit down the hall I saw a small green humanoid creature that seemed to be about waist height, hunched over, and very ugly with a club in hand. Also known as a goblin.

Ava elbowed me slightly and used her head to indicate that she wanted to me attack it. Slowly pulling an arrow out of my quiver to not cause any noise, I slowly knocked it onto my bow before drawing it back and aiming. Once I was pretty sure I would hit its head, I let go of the string and let the arrow fly.

But doing so I must’ve caused some noise as it suddenly stood up straight and turned around. The arrow went into its side and it released a scream of pain before it rushed towards us. Ava took of running towards it and got there within a few seconds. Using one of the daggers, she stabbed the goblins neck before it even had a chance to swing its club down.

It immediately died as she removed her dagger and let it fall towards the ground. I gained a small amount of Xp from that and imagined how strong I’ll be able to get if I keep coming here.

“The goblins here on the first floor are pretty week and I’m pretty sure you’ll be able to deal with them by yourself for today. So, let’s split up from here and do our own hunt.” She said as she pointed further down the dungeon, showing that it split off into multiple paths and areas.

I gave her a quick nod before she darted off. Walking over to the dead goblin, I went to retrieve my arrow as the body slowly started turning into an air and leaving behind a very small purple crystal the side of a pencil erasure and my arrow. Taking both, I stuffed whatever the little crystal was into my inventory and put my arrow back into my quiver.

Taking off in a different path then Ava, I quickly found another goblin. This time it had a short-rusted sword that seemed like it would break if anything hit it. Pulling out another arrow, I quickly shot it at the goblin and aimed a bit higher this time in anticipation at it hearing or sensing me and standing straight like the other one.

Instead it just flew over the goblins head and alerted it to my position. I gave a quick exhale at how much I hate my luck but quickly drew another arrow as it started running towards me. Firing it again, this time it went directly into its shoulder but whether from rage or just pure determination, it kept on running at me without making even a single noise.

Quickly pulling out another arrow and firing it again, it went straight into its chest this time which made it stumble slightly before falling face first into the ground. Pulling another arrow out and shooting it at the supposedly dead goblin, I made sure to check that it was dead so that it wouldn’t surprise me and catch me off guard.

Luckily after I shot the arrow and started making my way to the body, it started disappointing into air like the previous one leaving nothing but the small crystal and the arrows that I shot at it previously. Checking my Xp again, I saw that I gained 50 xp from killing a goblin by myself and still needed 985 Xp to get to level 6. Meaning I would have to kill 19.7 goblins to level up completely but since there was no such thing as a 0.7 goblin, I would instead have to round it up to 20 goblins.

Continuing down the path once more, I made sure to be wary of my surroundings just in case something was to jump out at me. Thankfully I did as at one point I noticed a slightly above ground stone that would make for a perfect secret button to activate a trap

Avoiding that, I saw a chest on the side of a wall just a bit away and decided that it too must be a trap or mimic since I’m in a dungeon. Knocking an arrow, I aimed at the chest before coming up with a great idea. Using {Wordless Magic}, I imbue the raw power of fire and heat into the tip of my arrow so that it was on fire and glowing bright red.

Once I assumed that the magic wouldn’t break as soon as I released the sting, I let it fly outwards and into the chest. It hit its mark perfectly as it flew into whatever you would call the mimics disguise. What the disguise an actual chest itself or is it just its actual body in the shape and color of a chest?

Not feeling up to it to go and actually test it by touching it, I just watched as it slowly lit aflame. A minute or so passed as I just watched this chest or mimic burn and eventually turn to ash. In the ash, I saw what appeared to be a leather book cover, so I quickly made my way over to get whatever loot it dropped.

Picking it up, I quickly discovered that it was a magical book holder for a Grimoire or something inside there seemed to be some weight, so I quickly got excited for a magic book or something. However, my arrow also somehow seemed to fly directly into the slightly opened top. Opening it, I discovered that my flame arrow had lit the book on fire and had burned almost everything but the magic leather cover of the book.

Pulling the cover out and dropping the holder to the ground, I observed the leather cover to figure out what kind of book I would’ve gotten. Reading the cover showed that the book said, “Introductions into Soul magic by Tony Hatecraft.”

Dropping the cover, I picked up my arrow and the book holder and walked away, leaving my mistakes behind me and in the past.