[Misty Strike] activating! P-System Log

Hm. Jerome actually managed to dodge the second spike trap. He's... adapting. Kind of. If you call wasting almost 60 mana so he can literally dash over the trap "adapting," at least.

And he didn't even hit the wall this time! Let's get it, Jerome!

[Assess] activating! Integrated identified: Undead [Animated Skeleton lv. 2] Nameless Strength contest initiated! Strength contest won by [Godkiller] Jerome Smith! Unarmed strike dealt 18 damage! Strength contest initiated! Strength contest won by [Godkiller] Jerome Smith! Unarmed strike dealt 16 damage! Enemy defeated! Experience rewarded! Party Chat

[Jerome Smith]: I am getting an irritating amount of messages.

[Aster K'lon]: You learn to not allow them to distract you. It is a necessity in this world.

[Jerome Smith]: So there's no option to, like, ignore them?

[Aster K'lon]: There is, but it is not worth it. You will surely lose valuable information if you choose to ignore all your System notifications.

[Jerome Smith]: Ugh, okay.

P-System Log There's an option to turn them off? I mean, not that I'm going to use it, but damn. That would've been nice to know. Private Message [Aster]

[Aster K'lon]: You seem to not have performed any unique actions while in the S'ker dungeon. Why is that? When we were in easier encounters, Jerome gained skills, but here you have yet to take a special action.

[P-System]: So far, it has been unnecessary.

[Aster K'lon]: Could I request for you to do so? Witnessing your special capabilities is crucial to my understanding of you two godsent beings and how you can assist us in our crusade against the Eternal King's relentless onslaught.

[P-System]: I am unsure what you request.

[Aster K'lon]: The matter is simple. Jerome Smith, [Godkiller], is indeed currently advancing at a rate far greater than those around us. Soon enough, he will surpass me in raw power if not overall ability. However, despite all of this, he does not advance fast enough.

[P-System]: What are you saying?

[Aster K'lon]: Jerome Smith may be the one who we need to slay the Eternal King. The Eternal King, however, has a level far greater than 100, possibly even reaching 1000, and it has more [Unique] skills than most people have skills overall. I do not exaggerate when I say that apart from the gods, it is by far the strongest being to have ever walked the Continent. Jerome needs to stack up to it.

P-System Log

She makes a decent point, not gonna lie. Jerome is decently strong, but we've been blasting through baby-ass dungeons so far. Nothing has actually threatened Jerome, so I have no idea what it'll be like if he fights against someone stronger.

...then again, it's not like it was me choosing to go into these baby dungeons, huh? It's not my fault Jerome hasn't had a real challenge--R Beasts excluded, maybe--since we spawned in here.

Private Message [Aster]

[P-System]: Jerome has been insufficiently challenged by this dungeon. He has been insufficiently challenged by many of his enemies so far. The only reason I have intervened so far is because of his stupidity, not because his enemies lacked power.

[Aster K'lon]: I suppose that's true. We can go to the [Rare] system next, then.

[P-System]: The [Rare] ones? That would be skipping a step, correct?

[Aster K'lon]: Correct. You made me realize that I have been treating Jerome far too much like an ordinary reincarnator, one with great prowess but not this level of...

[P-System]: Cheats? Blatant favoritism?

[Aster K'lon]: Increased skills.

[P-System]: Sure.

[Aster K'lon]: At any rate, he seems to be breezing through this dungeon as well. I doubt he will have too much trouble with

Party Chat

[Jerome Smith]: Huh, the monsters left in the maze are gone.

[Aster K'lon]: The Dungeon Core likely absorbed them for power. This would enable it to face you against a stronger being later in the dungeon, since these smaller mobs are clearly not even a distraction for you.

[Jerome Smith]: They are pretty weak, come to think of it.

[Aster K'lon]: In some cases, Dungeon Cores are intelligent enough to choose to redirect their resources.

[Jerome Smith]: And this is one of those cases?

[Aster K'lon]: It would appear that it is.

Private Message [Aster]

[Aster K'lon]: It would appear that you may be getting your wish sooner than you thought. The Dungeon Core's boss is sure to be stronger than it is normally.

[P-System]: I see.

P-System Log

Damn it, that shit better get the W Inertia expended by the Dungeon Core... losing enemies here means losing a pretty free XP farm.

Ah well. Nothing I can do about it.

Jerome is just about done with the maze, too. Looks like--

Party Chat

[Jerome Smith]: Shit!

[Aster K'lon]: You hit the spike trap twice before! Be more careful!

[Jerome Smith]: I didn't take any damage from it this time, right? It's fiiiiiine.

[Aster K'lon]: You were moments away from taking another fifty or so damage. If you were a weaker adventurer, you might be dead already.

[Jerome Smith]: But I'm not a weaker adventurer. I am that guy.

[Aster K'lon]: ...

[Jerome Smith]: Right. Not someone who gets Earth references. Anyway, the point is that I'm strong enough to handle it, so don't worry about it.

[Aster K'lon]: If you say so. Don't die.

[Jerome Smith]: No worries. I won't.

Hero's Personal Log 068 I won't die, right? P-System Message Response: that's up to you, [Godkiller]. Hero's Personal Log 069

First of all, nice.

Second, ugh, I guess that's fine. I'm strong enough on my own, and I've got you to handle any edge cases as well.

P-System Log

heheheh nice

Also! Jerome managed to say something about me that wasn't 100 percent negative! Let's fucking go!

Next room! Or the passageway to the next room, at least!

Party Chat

[Aster K'lon]: There are non-zero odds that the next room is also empty. The [Common] dungeons in S'ker all largely follow the same, generally linear design, which means that absorbing material from any given room will result in an empty path.

[Jerome Smith]: You think the Dungeon Core is going to reabsorb all of its monsters?

[Aster K'lon]: It may give you a non-monster challenge. I believe it will still attempt to challenge you, as Dungeon Cores often possess the tendency to do so, but I doubt that it will spawn more monsters to fight you prior to the boss room.

[Jerome Smith]: Saving its energy, huh?

[Aster K'lon]: Correct.

[Jerome Smith]: Alright, I'm kicking down the door.

P-System Log

Oh, this room is actually kind of nice. It's kind of set up like a library, complete with a whole lot of bookshelves, and with it comes a nice set of couches and tables. Reminds me of my high school library, not gonna lie, and I always enjoyed that place.

Not that this is a real library. I don't have a perfect sense of what's in the books, since I can't read between the pages even with my perception dome, but I'm pretty sure that they're like, no pages within those books. At the very least, the shape isn't exactly like they're real books. More of a facade to make it look like it's a well-stocked library than anything else.

Which probably means...

Party Chat

[Jerome Smith]: Huh. Neat. Is this a loot room?

[Aster K'lon]: Potentially. However, even in a [Common] dungeon, there may be traps or other detriments to you.

[Jerome Smith]: I see.

P-System Log

Ah, it's not trapped, but the exit is locked. I don't think there's any loot in here--at least, nothing that emits W Inertia or mana--so I'm just gonna skip the bullshit and find the way out.

I can see inside some of the books, since a decent chunk of them have been hollowed out and had stuff put inside them. It looks like the whole gimmick of this room is having a thousand or so keys, and then the people here need to find which key works for the lock?

Fuck that. I can see the lock, and I can see the inner workings of it. I had a phase where I got super super into lockpicking, so I think I can figure it out.

Thanks, Origin! I actually got a useful thing from you! Increased mental processing is real nice when I'm doing something that would normally be this tedious.

Okay, found it.

P-System Message The challenge in this room is a locked door. Books contain keys. The key to your door is located in the reddish brown-colored bookshelf, third row from the bottom, fourth book from the left. Key accepted! Party Chat

[Jerome Smith]: Well, that was easy. Thanks, System.

[Aster K'lon]: Your System assisted you?

[Jerome Smith]: Yes, it did.

[Aster K'lon]: Excellent. Then there's only one room left.

P-System Log One more room. Let's see how this goes. Party Chat

[Aster K'lon]: That is far stronger than it has any right to be. This will need to be reported.

[Jerome Smith]: What the hell is it? I can only kind of see it.

[Assess] activating! Integrated identified: Gelatinous Ooze [Gelatin lv. 15] Adventurer-Eater