The Insider System

Chapter 102: Going Deeper Pt.1

The elevator stopped and Lake said. "Hey Joy." When he saw her head move when he said her name Lake knew she was back to normal. "Hey Lake, they told me you wouldn't be back for a few days." Lake wondered who had said that to her and why but it wasn't surprising that people would be talking about him inside the guild, so he didn't ask.

"Are you in the mood to go into the dungeon today?" This wasn't a real question because no one liked to go into the dungeon, but Lake knew Joy couldn't refuse, so he was sort of messing with her. "Of course let's go." Once they were inside it didn't take Lake too long to get to the deepest he had ever been into the dungeon.

It was about 6 torches deep if you just kept heading straight. Most of the time they went all over the place because they were looking for weak undead to earn easy Exp so it usually took them a while to get this deep. The dungeon was like a web of tunnels leading all over the place so it was actually kind of hard to know where, and how deep you were at any given time.

When you weren't in a lit place it also had a darkness akin to what it was like while inside the forest during the massacre. Getting into the next tunnel to go even deeper Joy asked. "Are you sure this is about how deep the guards clear so we're going to start to run into actual undead that can do things other than run and swing their arms at you."

Lake had found undead more interesting since he had seen Domare make that undead giant out of a pile of dead bodies and a giant chunk of meat. "What kind of things can they do?" He wanted to know what to expect. "Undead as a race or whatever you want to call them are naturally gifted in Unholy and Dark magic as their mana is naturally already those two elements. Other races like us have plain mana when we are born, and only change it into an element once you choose to so you can try and ascend to godhood."

Lake knew you could change your mana into different elements so you could cast spells with it but he didn't really know you could make that change permanent. He guessed it made sense since the gods were literally the ones who put the elemental mana into the world and this made him wonder about the voices you heard when you used spells for the first time.

"Is the voice that tells you the name of the spell the god of that element's voice?" Lake couldn't see Joy because she was behind him but it sounded like she nodded before saying. "Yes they're the ones who make the spells and since they own the element it's ingrained into the element itself. If you were to make your own spell you wouldn't hear the voice even if you use their element."

Lake kept being reminded that he needed to learn more about magic every time he asked someone about it, but the answer usually helped him do just that. "I hear something get ready." Lake had high Perception so it wasn't unusual for him to hear the undead before Joy did. "Ok, just remember what I said about the magic."

Lake wasn't too afraid of magic because he had his ward ring and it was fully charged so even if he got hit with a spell there was very little chance he would take any damage. Now that he was about to fight he took this chance to switch his job off of Pickpocket and to Mugger. Pickpocket was already maxed so having it set as his job would be a waste of Exp.

Pulling out his sword, Lake got ready to Imbue Fire by charging up a bit of Fire mana. He had found this was a good way to kill undead, and he was also hoping he would unlock Enchanter soon. Getting close enough that he knew the fight could start at any second he stopped and activated Mana Vision.

Seeing where the Undead was through the darkness Lake used Imbue Fire on his sword and rushed towards it. He had seen this undead wasn't that strong from the power of its core. He had fought plenty with equal strength, and knew he could kill it with one strike from his sword.

Slicing the undead in two, Lake watched as the fire slowly spread out from where the sword had made contact and a few seconds later Lake felt the Exp from the kill. That was why he liked to use fire after the first cut, the fire slowly burned them until they were dead. Waiting for the flames to die down enough that he could walk over the corpse, they continued to go deeper.

"Seems someone was down here for Exp recently because usually these tunnels are packed full." Lake was fine with that because the amount of distance between here and where he was trying to get there would be more than enough undead for him to fight. Probably too many to be honest.

What he was doing was actually pretty dangerous from what people had told him about down here. As he went further there would be no light sources or barriers keeping the undead in the tunnel they were born in allowing the undead to wrap around behind them surrounding them if they weren't careful.

Lake had no hopes of actually making it in one try and would probably stop when Joy told him they should head back. The nice thing was any time he killed any strong undead it would take a long time for it to be replaced, so if he did this every day he would slowly make progress.

He didn't know if this was a good plan or not though because he didn't know how many were down here. So far the most he had seen in one tunnel was four and there were about 20000 tunnels down here supposedly, so at most he would have to kill 80000 undead which he could probably do in a few years.

Lake laughed at his very sarcastic math he had just done because it was hilarious, and thinking about that actually being correct was ridiculous. He also couldn't help but think that if the number of undead was actually that high it could potentially be a massive security risk if the Demon Lord was somehow able to get control of them.

Lake thought maybe that was why there were barriers that kept the undead from getting anywhere near the gate that the guards were at. Lake had never really thought about the reason the guards were there at all. He guessed they were there to keep an eye on the dungeon in case anything weird started to happen.

Getting into the next lit room Joy stopped him before he could go into the next tunnel. "Past this point there are no more torches, so it will be pitch dark from now on." So far every room Lake had been to had had one and he had been treating them like a goal every time he went into a tunnel so hearing there would be no more light at all was not something he liked even if he had been expecting it.

"What about the barriers?" They were more important than the lights because they made the tunnels more safe so he was hoping for more. "No the torches are what create the barrier, the undead can't get close to them." If Lake had thought about this he might have figured this out by himself.

"Have you ever been past this point?" Lake was looking at Joy so he could see her shake her head as she said. "No, it's against the rules for us to go this deep without orders to do so, and since there are no reasons to tell us to unless they want to kill us I've never been sent in."

"Do you think we should?" Joy shook her head even harder and said. "There's nothing in there other than undead that have been down here for years." Lake could see why Joy would think this because she couldn't see the Mark like he could, so to her he was just being overly curious.

"I'll be right back." Lake took a few steps into the tunnel to see if it was packed full or if it was oddly quiet like he thought it was. He could usually hear undead in a tunnel before he went into it but he couldn't this time. He could only see about ten feet because of the blinding effect from the Dark mana but he couldn't see any undead in the ten feet he could see.

Backing out of the tunnel, Lake said to Joy. "Let's go down this tunnel first then make a choice. This is the last tunnel where they won't be able to come from behind us so we might as well." Joy seemed reluctant but followed him in, and they started walking at a snail's pace with their ears peeled for any noise.