BDSysteM

The moment my ability activated, a slight distortion appeared around Melody, filling the entire width of the hallway. Seeing the barrier, Melody waved the two tanks forward, who each took a position near the slimes to get themselves targeted. Fara and I also went forward, but stayed a few feet behind the slowly shrinking chronofield, where Melody joined us.

And… the generic-looking light-green slimes hopped along very slowly…

So, I took the opportunity to look over my stats and see how much mana I consumed.

 

 

Nine mana per minute regeneration speed… that’s not bad I think. I wish I remembered what lower tiers have… should've paid more attention in high school, but I didn't really think I'd ever need the info. I know it’s less than nine per minute at level three, though. I’ll ask Melody later.

Anyway, looks like that used almost forty mana? Not great considering it doesn’t even last that long… if that was a three-meter sphere and the radius shrinks at point zero five meters per second… uh twenty seconds per meter… so like half a minute of active time?

Although based on my stat growth, that mana amount should be negligible pretty quickly. So maybe it’s not that bad.

Eventually, the slimes entered the barrier when it was about half of its original size, and a few hops later, reached their targets. The slimes were maybe a foot tall and a couple feet wide when on the ground.

The right slime targeted Amane, who was standing with her ability presumably activated, and she just… let the slime hit her. And then it hit her again, jumping up to her stomach area, and then bouncing off and back onto the ground where it started. Amane didn’t seem to care much. She was just looking down at it.

The left slime targeted Elle, who, unlike Amane, walked just out of the slime's range, kiting it in a way… just without any attacking for now. The slime was slow enough that Elle didn’t need to run around, she just took a step back, then walked around the slime, and basically made circles around it.

The barrier was getting dangerously small however… not that it was doing much to help against two weak slimes. Once the barrier was borderline too small for Amane and Elle to both fit, Elle took a step to the left, and Melody and Fara finally charged in.

Melody went straight to Elle, and poked the slime with a whip she pulled out of nowhere. It died instantly, unsurprisingly. As the slime died, it looked like it was melting. The gelatinous body wobbled before losing its integrity and collapsing inward, turning into nothing more than a thin green puddle on the floor.

Fara’s slime was a similar story. With the slime still determined to kill Amane, Fara stood off to the side, in my chronofield, and fired a bolt of electricity. The bolt was a bright blinding yellow that briefly lit up the cave before plunging it into darkness moments later. As the bolt hit the slime, it pushed it to the right a foot or so, then the slime stayed still, but didn’t lose its form like the other.

A few seconds later, longer than the gap between its normal bounces, the slime jumped up again, trying to attack Amane. Frustrated, Fara let out a grunt and stomped her foot into the ground, then fired out a second bolt. This time, the slime was pushed about three feet before it died, and became a messy puddle on the floor.

Before anyone could say anything, a pop-up appeared in front of me.

 

So I got rewarded for both kills… despite doing nothing.

Melody walked back over to me and asked everyone, although she was looking at me, “Did you all get some experience?”

“Yep,” Fara said happily. “Ten percent.”

“Me too,” Elle added.

Amane followed soon after with, “Yea…”

And I simply nodded since Melody was staring at me. She smiled, and said, “You’ll be leveling pretty quickly.”

Not sure if that’s specifically to me… but everyone else was also bobbing their heads along. If I get the same reward for simply assisting in kills as the people actually killing, this system is really broken. Are all support systems like this?

Answering my prayers, Silvia turned the corner and appeared back at the end of the hallway. “This room is empty, I got the notification that combat finished.”

“Did you gain any experience?” Melody asked as she approached.

Silvia shook her head. “Nope.”

“Huh,” Melody said, as she began thinking, along with the rest of us. Why didn’t Silvia get experience? She does recon… she was looking ahead, looking out for monsters… maybe it’s because she found nothing?

Fara followed my line of thought, saying, “Maybe you get experience when you find things?”

“Maybe.” Silvia shrugged, unconvinced.

Regardless, we decided to continue moving through the dungeon, with Melody pulling her map back out as we stepped into the room. This chamber was about half the size of the previous, and a bit more of an oval shape, but was decorated the same way. Stone and lamps. No dungeon entrance here of course. “The right leads straight to the boss room… so choose one of the lefts?”

The cavern had three passages, excluding the one we walked out of. The two that didn’t lead to the boss were roughly the same size as the one we’d just been in, however the boss path was less than a meter wide and just barely two meters tall. That one we’d need to go single file in. If we went there, that is.

“I vote left,” Fara started as we stood in a small circle in the center of the room.

Elle mirrored her statement only to be interrupted by Amane’s voice taking on a far louder tone than usual, for the first syllable that is. “The experience…”

Amane took a deep breath, before explaining. “I think… it’s b-because Silvia didn’t… spot the slimes.”

“Yeah, she needs to find something to earn experience?” Fara sent a puzzled look her way.

“But… she… didn’t find the—” Amane stuttered, struggling to find the right words… but I think I know what she’s talking about.

“Silvia never found the two we killed.” I took over, sending Amane a warm smile which she reciprocated. “She needs to identify enemies before we begin combat… before we notice them.”

“Maybe.” Melody nodded, turning to Silvia. “You lead?”

“Worth a shot,” Silvia agreed, and continued the voting. “I vote right.”

“I vote right,” Melody followed. I decided to wait for Amane to reply so I wouldn’t need to be the deciding factor, although I doubt it really matters… since Melody has a map and all that.

Amane spoke up after a few seconds of silence, saying, “I abstain.”

“Eh?” Since when… why?! It’s a fricken hallway… why the hell would you even think of abstaining?! It doesn’t matter where we go… and now I have to decide since everyone spun around to look at me.

“Uh…” My eyes darted between the two hallways. Does it matter? Melody has the map… she chose right. So right is probably the better place to go. Unless she… wait, that doesn't make sense. This isn’t a place for reverse psychology. It’s a dungeon.

“Right.” I decided. Because Melody picked it.

With my decision, Silvia nodded and began heading toward the middle pathway, which was roughly a straight line from where we came. Behind her, Melody, Fara, and Elle, and lastly, Amane and I with the S tier guard lingering behind.

As we walked through this next passage, it had a small bend, turning right, where Melody began speaking. “We should encounter some more slimes soon, since we killed some. The dungeon probably sees us as at least a little threatening now.”

Much like animals and humans, dungeons focus their protection on wherever they’re threatened. We encountered basically nothing, since the dungeon was sending all the slimes to that other S tier at the east entrance. I don’t know how smart dungeons are but I bet those two slimes were like a probe to see if we had any strength.

Obviously our current strength pales in comparison to the other S tier, but we did work as a team and killed the slimes basically instantly, which means the dungeon should at least be worried enough about us to spare a few more slimes while the stronger ones keep attacking the other S tier. I think.

Sure enough, after a more gradual bend to the left, Silvia called out from her scout position, about twenty feet in front of the rest of us, “Four slimes, three normal, one… pinkish-purplish one.”

Melody chuckled. “Fuchsia slimes are the cotton eaters. Unfortunately, these clothes aren’t cotton.”

That sucks—I mean, good. I won’t be naked in a dungeon with a group of people I barely know. Sucks for the slime though. Being denied like this. So cruel.

The six of us that weren’t Silvia finished the bend and the slimes came into view. This time, the slimes hadn’t entered the hallway yet. In fact, they didn’t even seem to be targeting us yet. They were just sitting down in the middle of the next dungeon room. We all joined Silvia, where she stopped about thirty feet left in the hallway. The slimes still weren’t paying attention.

“I’ll go scout the room?” Silvia suggested, likely because the slimes weren’t heading toward us.

“Go ahead.” Melody nodded, unfolding her map again and looking over it.

As the silence lingered, Fara prompted Melody’s attention, asking, “Why aren’t they attacking us?”

Melody shrugged. “Either they don’t see us for some reason… or something’s in that room. Which Silvia should inform us about either with a scream or a casual walk back.”

“We’re fucked if she screams, aren’t we?” Elle asked hesitantly. 

I was getting a bad feeling about this… but I don’t think anything will happen? It’d be very unlikely. Dungeons don’t often change, and one this large that’s been around for… probably a long time… shouldn’t have any anomalies.

“No…” Melody gave a slight chuckle, glancing toward the S tier behind us. “A level one hundred should be enough to protect us… it’s only floor one.”

Thankfully, Silvia reappeared and began walking toward us with a tense expression. Her body remained relaxed, though. Her eyes were simply bunched up with her lips pursed, looking somewhere between confused and concerned.

“What’d you find?” Melody asked as we all spun around to face her.

“Um… it’s…” Silvia struggled to speak for a little bit, until she just settled on the bluntest explanation possible. “There’s a dead body.”

I can’t say I expected that. Also… what does that have to do with the slimes?