Chapter 14: Too much leather for this kind of dungeon

Her vision quickly cleared up as she made her way inside.

You have entered a dungeon.

A timely system message reaffirmed what Sarah could already infer. But she was surprised to see herself not alone in this new area. She was in a large cave, lit by a campfire in the center with a decorated archway standing at one end of the room leading deeper into its depths. She cast her eyes around the area to see several portals there, five including the one she had just stepped through. Taking residence in the cave were seven people, all humans of what looked like an Italian descent. The whole group was already staring at her, surprised at seeing her enter.

One of the men, a large figure who was shaven totally bald stepped forward and spoke up. “Who are you?” He asked.

Her attention was not at the man’s suspiciously shiny head, nor the large hammer he held, but instead taken by the clothing the man wore. He was dressed in what seemed to be 6 separate leather jackets, wearing them all on top of each other. She was honestly surprised that the man could still move while wearing it all but did suspect that the amount of padding he had would make for a fairly reasonable defense. A brief glance made her realize the entire rest of the group was dressed similarly, decked in likely the whole catalogue of a biker magazine. Furthermore, they also wielded some interesting tools, large hammers and pickaxes that made her think they must have been construction workers previously. All in all, the group of 7 made for a fearsome sight as they all stood up and turned to look at her.

“My name is Sarah. Yourself?” She finally said.

“You speak Italian? Where are you from?” One of them cut in, a different member who seemed to be one of the youngest of the group.

“No, aren’t you speaking English?” Sarah replied, partly confused.

“The system translates. You are no longer speaking any language of earth, but instead what we have deemed Universal.” Lucifer timely gave her this advice. Something oddly convenient, Sarah thought.

Before the group could go down this route, the bald man once again interrupted. He already had a scowl on his face and, judging by the tight grip he had over his weapon, he seemed prepared to fight. “What’s your level, and where does the portal go?”

“Not telling and America, as far as I know.” Sarah responded. She was feeling slightly unnerved by the group, which seemed to be subtly approaching her. In preparation for a fight she felt almost inevitable, she started gathering mana into demonic energy. While doing so, she felt two of the seven people gathering energy from the air as well for what she could infer was their own bolts.

She knew that this could only end one way and unwilling to fight against fellow humans she began to back away towards the portal she had come from. But then, catching her unprepared, four of the men let out a shout.

She could feel her blood pump, her vision narrowing as she could only look at the men in front of her. But while her heart wanted to push her forward and fight, the world rapidly began to lose color and her mind remained focused, staying fully rational despite the feeling of her blood pounding in her ears. “Pitiful, for you to almost be caught in such a low level [Taunt]”, Lucifer said, likely the culprit behind her retaining her will as he was previously responsible for dulling her emotions when she was first introduced to the system.

And at this point she did not feel much emotion at all. She reacted on the basic instincts that had been driven into her over the past few days of combat as she formed four bolts simultaneously around her. While she knew she could make more, this was what she found while farming the undead to be the easiest number to control. She flung her arm forward, launching the four bolts at the first four men that were racing towards her. With surprisingly fine control, the bolts slammed into the faces of all four opponents and killed them all instantly.

Before she could react to her kills, she could feel 3 bolts come flying towards her, two from one of the mages and one from the other. Her control over the mana around her allowed her to sense the distortion in her surroundings from the approach of the bolts. As they came close, she could even feel what kind of attribute had been placed on them and was surprised to discover they gave off a solid feeling that could only come from an earth mage.

With the portal behind her, but unwilling to flee just yet, she did not have much room to dodge the bolts. However, with a rather calm motion she lashed out at the approaching mana with her own. She could feel the bolts distort under the blow of her demonic attributed mana, burning away to nothing before they were even able to reach her. Having removed the threat to the surprise of the two mages and one warrior still standing in front of her, she formed another three bolts to throw at them. This time, all three leapt out of the way of the fast-moving missiles and turned to flee towards one of the portals on her left. Sarah was unwilling to continue the conflict, and let them escape to where she could assume they originated from.

And then her emotions came back.

In a rush she was filled with panic, fear, anxiety, anger and revulsion. This cocktail of emotions led to the most natural of actions, as Sarah turned and emptied her stomach on to the ground beside her. After a few seconds in recovery, she turned back to stare at the four bodies that lay in front of her. She had killed four people and she didn’t know quite how to react. With her emotions gone, she had not even considered their lives as she took them, treating them just like one of the undead she had put down before. But now that the combat was over, she couldn’t help but stare at their faces, burnt and ruined from the demonic magic she had used on them.

“Concentrate.” Lucifer said, and she could feel the world once again grey around her. “Think rationally. They attacked you first, they were looking to kill you the moment you stepped in this cave. I do not understand why you even value their pathetic lives.”

And she could concentrate. Lacking emotion, she felt like what she imagined a robot or possibly one of the undead she had destroyed before would feel. With a cold rationality she looked back on what was less than a minute of combat and knew the men were killers. But she realized that she didn’t need to kill them either. She could have run, backed away into the portal like she originally intended, but once she lacked any emotion it seemed so easy to simply deal with these weak enemies.

Ability Unlocked: [Focus] Level 1

Through concentration in battle, you can suppress all inside emotions and outside distractions to focus on a task. A core skill of all caster classes that allows them to wield their mana with greater precision in combat.

As she read through the new text she had started to calm down. She felt both thankful for Lucifer holding back her emotions, while at the same time angry that he had done so in the first place. But inside, she knew that it was not done selfishly as she gained nothing from killing the humans. As she settled down, she felt both lucifer’s hold over her emotions and her new ability begin to drop. The world started to regain its color, and this time she did not panic as she did before.

She knew it was unhealthy, to just gloss over what she had done like she was doing now, but in the end, this was the apocalypse and she felt the pressure on her shoulders to get stronger no matter the costs. She knew she would have many sleepless nights over the sight of their burnt faces, but she had no way to bring them back. I’m not a priest, can’t save them now, she rationalized.

“No, you are a summoner and you should start using that to its full potential. While I haven’t been able to guide you properly these last couple of days, it is time we introduce you to the full power of your class. You will need it not just to progress inside the dungeon, but also to survive.”