Isekaied Into An Eroge, Time To Have Fun!-Chapter 169: It’s Finally Happening

"Alright, do we have everything we need for this..? Are we prepared for the Dungeon run?"

I felt a little like a Mother as I fretted over everything, checking and double checking that we had all of the gear and equipment that we would need for this endeavor, and making sure that there wasn’t a single thing missing took up quite a lot of energy... especially when the Orc you were partnered with was using this opportunity to try and flirt.

Try as she might though, there wasn’t much left in me for me to feel like reciprocating this back to her, so I kept to business and focused on that rather than indulging yet again, and after she noticed that she finally calmed down a little.

All of the potions that had been so graciously ’gifted’ to us by Professor Jezebyra were meticulously counted and divvyed up between Lu’Shaki and I based on who I thought they would be best suited for, whilst those special potions remained squarely within my inventory for right now.

Meanwhile the somewhat ornate hammer that had been loaned to my partner was being prepared for battle on the table, wiping it off with some enchanted oils and wrapping its haft where she felt it was necessary.

As for me, Professor Bo’Katari had been so pleased by our ’chat’ that she had handed the other Orc a lightweight mace that was perfect for me; it had the reach to be viable, was light enough for it to be usable by me, and it was certainly a blunt weapon.

The fun thing about it was the material it was made out of, which was extremely mana conductive, so if I used it in tandem with my magic it was going to be a whole lot stronger than it currently was, which was nice considering I was still so weak physically.

I at least had my magic to make up for that, and although I wasn’t as terrifying of a combatant as Sera or Hecate were, I was at least somewhat capable of defending myself and providing some sort of use in combat, so that was nice.

That was about all we had that had been given, though I still took stock of the basic armor that the Academy provided for things like this and made sure that we were ready to get going; those forays into the basic Dungeon had been a little more lax because I hadn’t planned on going that far at all inside of them, so the only threat was boredom causing you to let down your guard in front of a few Spirits.

Now though we were going to be facing a wide variety of crystal constructs that all had high defenses and a deceptively dangerous amount of attack power that was only balanced out by their abysmally slow movement speed.

You could easily walk away from these monsters but if you ever let your guard down for a moment or found yourself in a position with multiple of these monsters around you, things could get ugly extremely fast, to the point that death was almost a certainty.

That was why I was a little uptight about this, because this was going to be my real first time encountering actual danger, and that was filling me with a mixture of anticipation, excitement and a very healthy dose of anxiety as well as worry. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

I tried to block out the thoughts that were asking whether I was good enough, if I was going to get Lu’Shaki injured or killed for my hubris, if we were going to end up getting trapped inside of the Crystal Caves... I really did try to ignore them, but they were far too numerous for me to completely tune out.

It drummed up my anxiety a little and accelerated my heartrate a good bit, but the more adrenaline I had pumping through my veins the more ready I felt for this Dungeon run; there was so much to do and so many opportunities that I was going to have by doing this, so..!

The urge to just rush forwards and get in there was just as overwhelming as my urge to remain here, in the safety of the Academy; after we triple checked everything and made sure we understood what we were about to do, we made our way to the somewhat populated Dungeon Gate and waited in line.

"Do you have a plan for the money we might end up making?"

The calm, steady presence of Lu’Shaki was very much appreciated, and the question she asked as we just waited was enough to take my mind off of things whilst also passing the time, so I happily began to tell her about the food places I wanted to visit.

She just listened to me rambling on about the steakhouse that prepares what is supposedly the ’meanest’ sirloins in the entire city, listened to me describe the noodle place that had all kinds of exotic sauces, and overall just provided a nice distraction as we waited.

It took a few minutes to get up to the Dungeon Gate, and by that point I was at a steady heartrate and no longer thinking about the bad things that could happen as I instead focused on the food that I wanted to eat, which the Orc found very amusing.

Getting our papers stamped and stepping through the portal, Lu’Shaki followed right behind me and stepped up beside me, her loaned hammer resting on her shoulder as she kept it ready for use at any time.

Taking out the map that I had ’sourced from some other adventurer’ for a ’small price’ - really it was just drawn from memory since I had been here many, many times - I began to lead us through the Dungeon, only stopping to take in the scenery a few times.

Like the name would suggest, the Crystal Caves Dungeon was a collection of large expanses of brilliant blue, green, red and brown crystals that grew everywhere, illuminating the area and offering up a large amount of money to any who was patient enough to mine them.

Each crystal was magically enhanced and utterly abysmal to tear off of the walls or floors, so people tended to ignore them and instead focused on the main reason everyone was here in the first place; all of the crystalized monsters and ’herbs’ that were pretty much everywhere.

The other reason no one wanted to try and mine the crystals themselves was because the crystals created the monsters, so mining them up lowered the spawns and meant everyone had a less fun time here, so it was an unofficial rule of the Dungeon that you kept the Dungeon intact.

That didn’t mean that you couldn’t try and shave off some powder or try and snap off some small protrusions, but it usually wasn’t worth it since the monsters were made from the same stuff, so hunting was the most lucrative thing to do in the Dungeon.

The kaleidoscope of colors that assaulted the eyes was the first part of the Dungeon that was immediately noticeable, and while it sometimes got to be a bit much visually the scenery itself was gorgeous... but the smell was surprising.

It was sweet and crisp with a telling undertone of death that was almost deceiving, leaving you wondering constantly if you were smelling something dead nearby or if you were just going crazy.

As for the ambiance of the Dungeon it was unsurprisingly rather quiet, though whenever a crystal monster noticed you it would start scooting its way towards you, cracking against the crystals and tearing up the stone ground as it approached ever so slowly.

With as many crystals around as there were, the spawns were always high - hence why I was so worried yet exhilarated about this place - so we were unsurprisingly spotted right away, as was pretty much everyone else that stepped into the main room.

Since they were so slow though - and because there were so many other students as well as a few Professors around us - I had Lu’Shaki follow me closely as we exited the first gigantic cave and set foot into another.

It was less populated by adventurers, giving us the time to look around and really take it in before I nodded when my Orc wordlessly looked at me, her ’puppy dog’ eyes as she shifted the hammer slightly making it abundantly clear she wanted to hit something.

And honestly... so did I, so I pointed wordlessly over to a small cluster of these short, pointy eared Crystal Goblins that were a gorgeous shade of blue while I unholstered my borrowed mace, feeling its weight and wondering if it was really going to be enough to crack the highly defensive monsters ’armor’.

Although I wasn’t that adept at it, I mentally ’aligned’ myself with Wind Magic and began to imbue the mace with it, dousing the silver weapon in a pale green glow that signified its attunement to Wind Magic.

It suddenly felt lighter in my hands, and taking a step to the right to claim my own Crystal Goblin from the trio I prepared to attack, stowing the map and loosening myself up as my adrenaline began to rush through me.