Danmachi- Hell’s Forge

First delve

I picked up all the produce from the ground and put it in the bag.

"Oh no! The tomatoes have gotten bruised! Mama Mia is going to kill me!" the girl said fussing over the bruised red fruit.

I held out my hand "Give them to me and I'll fix them up for you. it's the least I can do after accidentally running into you like that." I said honestly.

The girl looked confused but did as I asked and with a quick application of my technique the tomatoes were as good as ever and I had even improved the flavor by a small amount.

"You magic is beautiful and useful, would you consider working at the Hostess of fertility?" the girl asked with a bright smile.

"Not for me I'm afraid, I'm an adventurer at heart. Thanks for the offer though and please do have a good day." I said before hurrying away as I was still very eager to get into the dungeon.

The girl seemed nice and all but I had better things to do than socialize. After rushing for a good forty minutes I finally reached the entrance to the dungeon. It was under the tower of babel and had two guards at either side of the door who were ignoring everyone entering the dungeon which made me think they were here more for the monsters than the people. The entrance to the dungeon itself was a winding rough stairway that appeared to have been carved from the walls themselves.-

Unlike most people think the first floor of the dungeon actually had a bunch of different zones that could be found via the "doorways" along the walls of the stairs but all lead to the lower floors eventually. I like so many other adventurers chose a random entrance and entered the first floor proper. The layout of the first few floors was the same with it having dark stone walls like that of a cave but strangely weren't pitch black at all for some reason and you could see easily here.-

I immediately walked over to a wall and put my hand on it and trying to activate my cursed technique but I got no response but not for the reason I had expected. I could feel that the dungeon was alive or at the very least had something indistinguishable from it but my technique was simply unable to effect the thing.-

If I had to explain it was like my technique tried to attach itself to the dungeon but simply couldn't get a grip if that makes sense. Despite this however the dungeon clearly DIDN'T appreciate the attempt as the walls crumbled and five humanoid creatures with green skin and wooden weapons came from them, goblins. I cursed and quickly drew out my weapon before rushing at the first goblin nearest to me that was still disoriented from just being born. Swinging wide with the hammer part I connected with the side of it's head.-

"CRUNCH!"

I flinched as I felt the flesh and bone crack and shatter on impact through the hammer. It was a sickening sensation for someone who had never killed anything intentionally before like me but I didn't have time to contemplate it as the rest of the goblins yelled and charged at me. The first goblin was obviously dead considering I had collapsed it's skull with my very heavy weapon. I knew from the Artemis familia that monsters in the first four floors weren't much more durable than a normal human so it honestly wasn't that difficult to kill them quickly if you hit the right spots.-

Of the four remaining goblins it was one with a wooden club that reached me first and the thing viciously leapt up and tried to crack my own skull with the thing. I dodged to the side and swung my axe head side at the goblins side which I immediately regretted as the ribs crunched and split with blood pouring out and this awful sound from the lung getting crushed came from the goblins mouth. The weight of the blow sent the creature sprawling to the side making a terrible gurgling sound as it tried and failed to breath.-

Again I had no time to deal with the mental pressure this brought to my mind as the next two goblins arrived, one with a sharp wooden spear and one with a club. My only saving grace was that these things were wild and didn't work well together. the spear goblin tried to stab me but the club goblin got in the way ending up getting stabbed in the back. It got hit in the perfect location for the magic stone to get hit which killed the thing instantly and it exploded into black smoke with red sparks in it.-

Unlike what I was expecting however where the smoke would just clear out like the Artemis familia had told me it instead got sucked into the tattoo on my chest. 

'The fuck?' I thought in complete confusion but snapped out of my shock when the spear goblin didn't stop trying to kill me.

The last goblin that also had a spear caught up and I had the play dodge the stabby sticks for a good five minutes with not great results before I got an oppurtunity to crack my hammer side against a skull again leaving me to deal with only one goblin.-

The last goblin had no sense of self preservation and went to stab me again but I frankly had had enough of getting cut up by barely dodging the things and after avoiding the spear grabbed it with my left hand and activated my cursed technique. Immediately the wood that the goblin was holding grew spikes through it's palm making it scream and try to drop the spear. taking advantage of this distraction I stepped forward with my weapon and brought it down as hard as I could onto the last goblins head.-

The skull was totally demolished with blood pouring out everywhere as the goblins body dropped. My senses were alive as adrenaline coursed through my veins and I was gasping and panting heavily in exhaustion. It took five minutes for me to recover and start to calm down and another thirty to stop vomiting as my mind caught up with the brutal nature of what I had done. Don't get me wrong I understood the necessity of it but that didn't mean actually doing the stuff wasn't hard on the mind at first.-

The fact I had basically killed four things at once definitely hadn't helped at all. If it was only one like I had originally planned then it wouldn't have been so bad but I pissed off the dungeon a little and got four. Next came the really uncomfortable part though, magic stone collection. Monsters all contained magic stones somewhere in their body, usually the chest, that you needed to harvest or risk a variant showing up which was a mutation of a normal monster that grows by eating magic stones. Interestingly a monsters body won't vanish until the stone was harvested and drops don't appear either.

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