Danmachi- Hell’s Forge

Middle floors

"Oh that? Yeah I felt it too but it went away after eating a big meal so I figured it wasn't a big deal." Naaza said the next day when I asked her about it.

"Of course it's a big deal! Do you have any idea how bad it would be if I tried to regrow a limb of someone malnourished? They would probably die!" I said angrily.

"Well how was I supposed to know that, do I look like a healer to you!?" she countered and I was left speechless.

Like she wasn't wrong exactly but at this same time the logic was lazy to say the least. Obviously common sense states that if my technique can't find any extra stuff to use to regrow the limb it would take from vital stuff instead. Can you imagine how fucked that situation would be? I would be all heroic and shit in my head, you know swooping in and restoring a lost limb, only to let the person get buried with a complete corpse instead as my technique cannibalized their vital organs. Still I couldn't really blame her for not putting much thought into the matter since it has little to do with her as my ability.-

"Haa~ Just tell me if something like this happens again alright?" I asked and she nodded noncommittal.

After that I walked along the cobblestone main street of Orario towards the hostess as people went about their business in the same way. True to it's name I saw adventurers where ever I looked with all manner of weapons from staves, swords and axes all the way up to daggers and cestus. There was no real dominant race in the population either as I saw equal parts humans, dwarves, amazons, elves and beastkin races.-

Like usual at this time in the early morning Syr was waiting form me in her servant outfit like looked a lot like maid outfit from earth but was green instead of black. It was easy to know when she spotted me too as I was now hyper aware of my own soul and thus knew the moment she looked at it.

"Good morning Alex! Heading to the dungeon today?" she asked after greeting me with a smile.

I nodded "That was the idea, I was thinking of going to the middle floors this time since I was rather disappointed at the strength of the infant dragon I killed. My hopes that the numbers will prove a better challenge to sharpen myself against." I said honestly.

She frowned at me "You never told me that you killed an infant dragon?" she said accusingly.

I shrugged "It didn't seem important really as the thing was frankly easy to kill, though I suppose for most other level twos the fight would indeed be pretty hard." I said casually.

"If you say so" she said with a roll of her eyes. "By the way Lenoa said she wants more of the thing you gave her but wouldn't say what it was when i asked. Out of curiosity what did you give her anyways?" she asked curiously.

"Just a thing I had lying around. Some sort of unique magic stone." I said not technically lying.

Now that i knew she was a goddess i knew how pointless lying to her was so I started exploiting the loopholes to the gods innate ability to tell when a mortal lies to them. For example technical truths still count as truths to them and they would need to figure out when someone used one on them like every normal mortal.-

Most gods however just take a truth for granted and are thus easy to mislead if you know what you are doing. Syr looked suspicious of my answer though which means she probably felt that something was off.

"It must have been something special if Lenoa wanted more." she said pressing the matter.

"I doubt it is more than a mere curiosity since the thing can't even be used as fuel for magic items, I tried." I said both giving her information and not at the same time.

This worked as she seemed satisfied with my answer. "Well I suppose I shouldn't keep you any longer lest Mama Mia scold us. Best to stay on her good side after all." I said bidding my farewell.

I could feel her gaze on me periodically until I got in the dungeon where I assume she was unable to see. I blitzed past the first twelve floors without killing a single monster I came across, except the killer ants because fuck them in particular. Thus after a good hour and a half of travel I arrived on floor thirteen at the start of the "cave labyrinth" floors.-

The entire area was fairly wide at about five or six meters across with floors and walls made of rugged bedrock. The light was dimmer and the air heavy with humidity that clung to my skin. From this floor to the seventeenth I had to deal with the first non-rare level two monsters as well as some other high level one monsters. Hard armored, Silver backs, Wyverns, Crystal mantises, Lamia Mormos, Hellhounds, Almiraj, Dungeon worms, Minotaurs and Ligerfangs. Hard armored were giant armadillo creatures that like the name implied were covered in hard armor plated skin that made them hard to kill without flipping onto their bellies.-

Silverbacks were massive white furred gorilla monsters with silver colored fur on their backs, hence the name. Wyverns were pink scaled draconic monsters that lacked the breath attacks and sheer raw power of an actual dragon but could still fly. Crystal mantises were large praying mantis monsters with crystal bodies that were also attracted to crystals or shiny objects for some reason but had no specific coloration. Lamia Mormos were monsters much like the myths of earth as they had the lower half of a serpent and the upper half of a beautiful woman though with blue skin and razor sharp claws at the ends of each finger.-

Hellhounds were basically fire magic spewing wolves with black fur and red eyes. Almiraj were white rabbits with red eyes that were universally known as one of the cutest monsters in the dungeon but were vicious little shits. Dungeon worms were just man sized earth worms with a mouth full of razor sharp teeth. Minotaurs were a weird fusion of man and bull and had the ability to wield weapons making them popular sparring partners at higher levels. Ligerfangs on the other hand were huge feline monsters that had the manes of a lion and the stripes of a tiger on their silver and black furred bodies. They also possessed massive front teeth like a sabre toothed tiger from ancient times.-

Like you may be able to infer from this roster of monsters this was where the dungeon stopped playing nice as not only was there a sharp increase in power from here on but the spawn rate was also greatly increased. In other words it became a very very bad idea to try and solo these floors and beyond as more monsters were likely to show up until you are overwhelmed, I was so excited.