TDH Vol. 1 pt. 29

I opened my eyes to the feeling of a headache trying to split my skull in half. Normally, that meant I was back in my cell. Instead… I found myself in the boss’s room still. In Cheese’s room. The dungeon’s master was gone alongside Cheese’s body, but the chest in the center of the room was still there.

And next to the chest was a tall, standing mirror pointed at me.

My vision was a bit blurry, so I had to get closer to see how I looked.

I can remember him saying something about me evolving, right? And becoming true to my soul’s desire or… whatever he was on about. Shit, my head hurts. Wait. Am I still me? Dad, mom… the kids I grew up with… Elanah… the dungeon… I can still remember everything and I still feel like… me. Maybe having a soul added to my own isn’t such a big deal after all. I was afraid I might lose who I am or become like somebody else. I still have no idea how it works, but maybe I’ll talk to him about it the next time I see him. He loves rambling on about how great he is, so as long as I phrase the questions right, I bet I can get him to talk about anything and everything.

Maybe he was just screwing with me and decided to give me a headache for fun. I had no way of knowing if I was truly any different or if there was another soul added to mine or whatever it was that he explained.

The only way to try and confirm that was to look at myself in the mirror, so that was what I did.

My vision was still blurry.

What would I even want to become? I guess… like my old self? Would that make me turn into a transbeast? Would I end up being one of those people with a Chosen’s body but with beast ears?

I imagined my old body but with the ears and tail of the body the dungeon’s master gave me. That was how the rare transbeasts I ever saw looked, anyways.

He said I’d change to represent what my soul truly wants… I don’t even know what that is. I guess my soul would know, though.

I stood right in front of the mirror just in time for my vision to clear up.

And when I looked in the mirror…

Did I become even fluffier?

I blinked a few times before rubbing my face against one of my front legs.

I’m… I’m fluffier now. Wait. Seriously? And my ears are taller and pointier. And… seriously? Seriously?! Is this what my soul seriously wants?! To look even fluffier and… and cuter?! How?! How is this what I want?! Tell me at least something else changed!

I opened my mouth since that was the only place I could imagine something else being different, and I saw that my fangs were a bit larger than before and also sharper. Seriously sharper. With how sharp they looked now, there wouldn’t be a problem biting through Cheese’s rolls of fat. The only problem now was their length. Even if they could cut through, it wouldn’t mean much if they couldn’t cut deep enough.

Even so, I’d at least be able to shred my way deeper into her neck if I ever had to fight her again. I wouldn’t need to rely on her own teeth for a weapon.

Seriously… what am I supposed to think of myself if all I did was become even… cuter? I thought I’d become more like a Chosen again, or at least… I don’t know, bigger. But instead, here I am, just… fluffier. I have shaper fangs, but nobody is going to pay attention to that. And after what that bastard explained in front of everybody, everybody is going to believe this is what my soul wanted me to look like! I want to die. I don’t even want anybody to see me again. They’re all going to laugh at me and think I’m pathetic and…

That wasn’t true.

Elanah… I bet she’d like how I look. She’d probably want to pet and touch me even more. That… that kind of sounds nice—wait. Don’t—don’t tell me. Don’t tell me that I became like this because…

It was all coming together.

I figured out my soul’s true intention.

I figured out my intention.

And because I figured it out, I was quick to shake my head and forget that I ever made the realization that I made. It was something I had no intention of ever admitting to, so there was no point in thinking about it.

Well, I’m fluffier now. And my fangs are sharper. Let’s… let’s just see what’s in the chest.

There was no way I’d be able to open the chest like a normal person would given my size, so all I did was place a paw on it and hoped for the best. Like with the door.

And that was good enough.

The chest leaned backward away from me before falling onto its back with the trunk open. I had to run around to the other side to see what was in there.

What I saw was…

Another ability. One of those etched stones with glowing runes in it that let me know I’d temporarily gain a new ability by touching it. The energy coming from the runes looked white in color, so I had to assume it might have been something related to wind magic going by the usual color patterns.

So, I placed a paw on it to activate it.

And then I was immediately lifted up off the ground. Just barely, though. I was no more than a couple of inches off the ground. But even though I might not have had any friction with anything, I was still able to walk around like normal. Every step just felt a little bit bouncier.

This… is kind of funny feeling. Alright. So, I’m faster thanks to lightning magic… and now I can hover thanks to wind magic? Alright. I think I can work with this. Actually, what if I try…

I looked at one of the walls and ran straight for it. Only, once I was about halfway there, I stopped moving on my own and slid through the air toward the wall.

This… is seriously fun! I can slide through the air!

I ran toward the opposite side of the room, stopping to slide halfway there again. Even if I rolled onto my side, I still slid through the air and remained the same distance above the ground.

If I didn’t have a dungeon to go through I probably would have spent another hour screwing around with my new ability.

But unfortunately, I did have a dungeon to go through.

Not only am I cuter now, but I can float now.

I didn’t even notice when it revealed itself, but a door on the other side of the room from where I entered opened up to reveal downward stairs to the next floor.

Can I slide down the stairs?

There was only one way to find out.

But first, I went back to grab the broken tooth from Cheese to use as a weapon again in case I needed it. I noticed that it was left on the floor despite her body being gone, so the dungeon’s master must have left it for me.

That kind of made sense. I took it from her body and used it like a weapon. If I had used a sword to stab into her stomach, he probably would have left that, too. Or if I took one of the weapons from a goblo on a previous floor.

Regardless, with the tooth in mouth and my electrified paws lifted up off the ground, I slid down the stairs like sliding down a hill wet with morning dew.

“This is seriously the best!” I barked. “Did you see that?!” I asked the observing orb.

All it did was float around me like normal with zero response, not that I expected one in the first place.

I wondered what I sounded like to people on the other side watching me.

Now, ready to test out my improved body and new ability, I looked around the start of the sixth floor to see what I was working with.

The sixth floor was already dramatically different from the floors above it. The first five floors felt like I was just in… well, an underground dungeon. Everything was made of stone, there wasn’t much decoration, and so on. It was nothing special.

But now that I made it to the sixth floor, the scenery became much more diverse. I felt like I was in a natural cave rather than a carved tunnel. The tunnels were mostly made of dirt with only a few rocks spread out around the place. The torches on the walls were replaced with shining crystals, and they shone much more dimly than the torches which caused the entire floor to be darker overall.

I also noticed the occasional rock sticking out of the wall. They were rocks with what looked like shining, metal veins running through them. There were even a few cracks in them already.

Just looking at them made me wish I had a pickaxe to try and break them apart with. It was like an instinctual urge. Unfortunately, I had no pickaxe and doubted I’d be able to use one properly even if I did have one.

Moving on, I was presented with three choices. I could go left, straight, or right. The left path was the darkest and even led into what looked like absolute nothingness. It was like a black abyss staring at me from the distance. The next two paths were more or less the same as each other with dirt, shining crystals, and some rocks. The right path had more lighting, though, and I would prefer being able to see any new, unknown enemies on the floor, so right I went.

While walking through the right tunnel, I came over a specific patch of dirt and noticed something.

My right paw didn’t reach down as far as my left paw.

I looked down and noticed that there was a bump in the dirt underneath my right paw. The bump raised the ground level which made it so that my paw didn’t reach as far down. It was like standing on stairs with one foot off and the other on.

I managed to step right over a small mound that looked suspiciously out of place now that I noticed it.

Was there something under the dirt?

I had to admit that I was curious. Not only was I curious, but I figured that the audience might be interested, too. Especially since the floating orb watching me came closer to get a close-up of me and the mound.

Well… I’m curious and it looks like whoever’s controlling the orb might be, too. So, why not? Maybe I’ll find something useful. What if there’s an item under there that I can use? I’ve heard it’s possible to find items throughout the dungeon outside of boss fights and that annoying bastard, so here’s to hoping.

I didn’t waste any more time and got to digging. Fortunately, as long as I tried hard enough to get past the whole floating thing, I was allowed to actually touch the ground and push the dirt away.

But the moment I removed enough dirt, before I could even come close to uncovering whatever caused the mysterious mound… I heard a click.

And that was when an explosive blast sent me flying up into the ceiling.

I found myself in the usual cell the next time I opened my eyes. Given that I couldn’t remember how I got to the cell, that meant I died.

And as soon as I stood up, I heard muffled laughter from across the hall.

I looked over to its source and saw Fane sitting there with a hand over his mouth trying to hide his laughter. He was bad at it. Seriously bad at it. It was also the first time I heard him laugh so much.

“You… you actually did that,” Fane said, forcing himself to calm down enough to talk. “At least the audience is going to love you for that one. You shouldn’t have to worry about getting voted off anytime soon.”

Since I couldn’t ask him what happened, I just tilted my head to try and look confused while hoping that would get my point across.

“Do you even know what happened?”

I shook my head.

“Oh… that makes it even better.” He was back to laughing after that. Fortunately, he calmed down enough to actually explain after a few moments. “Alright, so, you see… you stepped on a mine. You didn’t trigger it at first because you were floating. You seriously had the perfect ability for not activating pressure plate traps. But once you cleared enough dirt off the top to cause a change in pressure on the activation plate—well, that’s when it explodes. Doesn’t matter if you add pressure or remove it. Any change will cause it to explode. So, there you were, safe and sound on top of a mine without even knowing it… and then you dug it up. Let me tell you, you had everybody watching laughing. We were shouting, ‘No! What do you think you’re doing?!’ while laughing our heads off. Ah… that was great. You made the whole month for everybody watching, probably.”

Hearing that I had that many people watching me knowing that I was about to do something extremely stupid felt… embarrassing. Seriously embarrassing.

I ended up lying down and covering my eyes up with my front paws since that was the only way for me to hide from the world.

“For future reference, don’t step on suspicious bumps in the dirt. The mines will get even harder to detect on the lower floors, but you don’t have to worry about those yet. For now, you should expect to see traps more often. Mines will be pretty rare until after the tenth floor. The ones you’ve really got to look out for are tripwires… which, now that I think about it, might not be an issue for you. Tripwires only really screw those of us up who are tall and not watching the ground all the time. You’re at about the height for them, though, so you should always catch them unless you’re paying zero attention to your surroundings. You might even be short enough to walk under them. And even if you do activate one… all they do is shoot poisoned arrows from the walls. They fire at a height too tall for you, so you actually don’t have to worry about them at all. Dang. Having that tiny body is going to be great when it comes to dealing with traps since almost all traps are designed for normal-sized people. But… you’re still going to want to watch out for mines.”

And he was back to laughing.

Hopefully Elanah didn’t see that. Then again, even if she didn’t, there was a good chance she’d be hearing about it from any of the others.

The good news was that I was fairly confident she was obsessive enough that she wouldn’t mind at all. If anything, I could picture her getting mad at others for laughing at me dying.

But I still didn’t want her to know about it. The way I saw her getting mad at others was in a protective way.

I didn’t want her to feel like she had to protect me. I wanted to protect her.

I’m a failure as a man, I thought to myself. Though, I wasn’t sure if I felt like a failure for needing “protected” by her… or because the thought of her protecting me made me happy.

I shook my head to stop thinking about that.

That was the intent of shaking it, anyways. Instead, all I did was give myself a headache.

“Wonder what else I should tell you. My queen should be here tomorrow, so I won’t be around here much longer. Guess I should teach you as much as I can before that happens,” Fane said.

I heard him talk about his “queen” all the time, but I had no idea who she actually was. Maybe she was his wife and that was his nickname for her? I didn’t know, but I doubted there was anybody even slightly close to queenly coming to see him.

Actually, with how smooth he apparently was when it came to women… I wouldn’t be surprised if he actually did seduce some royalty somewhere.

I wondered if I’d get to meet her. I was curious.

“Also, you had the chance to evolve… and you chose to be fluffier?” Fane asked.

I ended up banging my head into the wall.

Needless to say, my headache got worse.