Chapter 132

[Your party has defeated a Demonic Noble Dullahan][Novice Magic Swordsman has increased from level 10 to level 11][Enhancement magic has increased from level 1 to level 2][Learned Enhancement Magic Spell Lightfoot]

I patted Mimi on the shoulder. "Are you good? You took quite the hit there."

"I leveled!" Mimi said excitedly.

Bella pulled her in a hug. "I'm glad you're okay Mimi. I was really worried."

Mimi returned the hug and nuzzled into her neck. "I'm okay Bella. It would take something heavier than that to smoosh me."

Bella pulled away and laughed. "I'm sure. It can be easy to forget how tough you are."

"Is your uh... friend okay?" Jasper got a closer look at Mimi now that her hood was down. She was shapeshifted and covered in fur but he still looked at her with confusion. "Er, sorry to ask but what tribe are you? I never got a good look at you before."

"I'm a Mimadora!

Jasper sighed. "Sorry, there are so many beastfolk it's hard to keep track of all the different kinds. I've never come across a Mimadora before. Is your kind uncommon? Is that why you're hiding your face?"

Mimi shrugged. "Yeah, there aren't many around like me. I hide my face to avoid too many awkward questions."

"Right, sorry. I saw you take that nasty hit so I wanted to make sure you were okay. Is anyone else hurt? If not, I would like to request some healing from Miss Bella if that's not too much trouble."

Bella turned to me. "Are you okay Lilith? I saw you get thrown across the room."

"No problem. I might have some bruises but I can wait until you've treated the others," I replied.

"Sure," she said with a smile before standing up and walking towards the guards. "Okay! Who needs healing?"

I took the opportunity to look over my new skill.

[Lightfoot - Enhancement Magic Spell]This spell temporarily imbues your surroundings with magic that reduces the weight of anything you target inside its field. This effect can be resisted by Magic Defense. The intensity of this effect is increased by half of your Magic Force. This spell reserves a portion of your mana and drains your mana as upkeep as long as it stays in effect. Magic Control reduces the amount of mana required for upkeep and increases the size of the effect's field.

Oh! This seems useful. I wonder what principle this works on. It sounds like it would be gravity magic or something. Mimi has a pocket dimension of sorts where she keeps most of her 'weight' so it's a little hard to guess. Enhancement magic seems like a bit of an oddball category, most of what I get tends to be a subcategory of a different kind of magic I have available. This one doesn't seem to nicely fit into any of the other categories I know of though. Either this one is a 'pure' enhancement spell, or it's mixed with something I don't already have access to, which is interesting. Sometimes gaining new magic seems related to what I'm doing at the time and other times it doesn't. It's a bit inconsistent and confusing but then again, it is magic. Maybe I'm overthinking it.

Mimi had that glassy look in her eye too, which was a bit interesting to see because I've never really seen her poke around her status before. I guess she's usually shapeshifted into something else though.

"Did you get anything interesting Mimi?" I asked.

"Mmm, eh." she shrugged but I could feel her request to speak through the bond so I widened our connection.

-- "I got a new [Novice Shortblade] class. I've never gotten a different class before but now that I have one, my current class is listed as '[Mimic],' the spot where my class is now wasn't there before, it showed up between my race and level." --

-- "Did you get any notifications about something changing?" -- I asked.

She shook her head. -- "No, I haven't gotten any messages like that since you first changed me into a succubus." --

-- "Odd. Well, are you going to change your class? Try something new out?" --

She looked thoughtful for a moment. -- "Maybe, but not right now. I think it's better to rely on what I'm used to in this situation." --

-- "Smart. Maybe we should go hunt outside the city soon and try out some stuff and practice working as a small team now that you'll be joining us." --

Mimi smiled. -- "That sounds fun! We should do that soon." --

Silva and the twins were standing over the body of the dullahan. Unlike most of the monsters we fought here, it didn't dissolve as soon as we killed it. Looking at it on the ground reminded me of the dread knights we killed in the first dungeon, those turned to dust when we killed them too though.

Morrigan stood up from where she had been crouched next to the body of the monster. "Do you think this is the body of the former Baron?"

Silva turned towards her shocked. "You're saying he- he turned into this?"

She nodded. "Think about it, we just killed a Demonic Noble Dullahan. You watched the former baron be decapitated in this office and whatever is happening here also changed the office to look like this. It shouldn't be a stretch that his body turned into a monster."

Torien scrunched her brows. "But... I didn't think it was possible for people to turn into monsters..."

"People sure, but a corpse isn't a person anymore, is it? A corpse no longer has access to the system." Morrigan crossed her arms and looked back down at the headless monster we just fought.

The thought was sobering but the pieces did fit.

Torien spoke quietly. "That doesn't give us much room to investigate his death then, does it?"

"No, it doesn't," Silva said bitterly.

I looked around the space we were in. The guards were chatting and resting as Bella finished healing the guard that had been thrown across the room like I had. Nearly all of the walls were covered in those crazy tall bookshelves.

I took a breath and carefully activated [Focused Perception]. I wasn't sure what I was looking for yet but I had a feeling something was off. I used my magic control to dial in the effects of the spell, I decided I only wanted improved eyesight right now. I couldn't afford to overwhelm myself with too many hypersensitive senses at once. I was also able to use my [Mana Sense] in combination but using the magic and skill at the same time was hard to maintain. I focused and looked around, looking for anything out of place.

Wait, THERE!

It took me several minutes of looking around before I noticed it. Near the back of the wall was a large knot of stagnant mana, mana that was right on the verge of condensing and turning into miasma. I released [Focused Perception] before it made the headache I got from using it in combination with [Mana Sense] any worse.

"Mimi, Torien, follow me." I led them over to the strange knot of mana and pointed it out to them. It was pretty high up in the air so we could only get so close to it from here.

Morrigan was instantly intrigued by it. "Fascinating! A large clump of stagnant mana! Most of it has completely frozen up already and even the mana in the immediate area around it is sluggish. I don't think I've seen anything like this before! Mimi, what about you?"

Mimi shook her head. "I've never seen anything like it."

"Wait..." Torien rubbed the space between her eyes. She didn't have mana sight so for her we were just all standing under a thing she couldn't see. "I think I know what this is."

Morrigan turned to her sister excitedly. "What? You have an idea?"

She nodded and looked in the vague direction of the floating knot of mana. "The way you guys are describing it, are you sure that thing isn't a dungeon core?"

Morrigan sucked in a breath and looked back at the peculiar mana.

Torien nodded. "The space around us, the difficult enemy, the large amounts of miasma, demonic or otherwise. Wouldn't it make sense that this could be a brand new dungeon forming right above our heads and this is the core?"

"Y-you're joking..." I turned when I heard Jasper's voice. Jasper and Bella had walked over to see what we were doing.

Morrigan's tail flicked back and forth wildly. "It makes perfect sense though! A new dungeon! We could be the only mortals ever to witness this in person! That means this space is like a proto dungeon, one that hasn't completely formed yet. Maybe that's why we didn't get any kind of reward for killing the dullahan, or any notification for defeating a dungeon despite there being nowhere else to go in here!"

Captain audibly sighed and rubbed his temples. "If this is actually a dungeon then we shouldn't interfere with it, right? Does that mean Goldenhearth is going to have a dungeon sprout up right in the center of the city? We don't even have control over the entire city again yet, how are we supposed to get the resources to deal with this problem too... merchants? the king?"

I looked back up at the knot of mana again. "You're forgetting something Jasper. Even if that thing already was a dungeon, Nothing but demons are around. We don't know how everything works but demon-spawning dungeons are destroy on sight." I shook my head. "We should stop it from forming, it's not a dungeon yet so it's not against the rules to disperse the mana, it's spawning demons, so even if it was a dungeon, we should still destroy it. And third, we have no idea what would happen if a dungeon spawned right into the middle of town, especially right now. It's way too dangerous, we should destroy it and stop it from forming."

Jasper rubbed his face and groaned before looking in the general direction of where the mana was. "Fine but I'm putting in my report that I was advised against letting it form. If they take issue with this decision I'm going to pass the blame onto you."

I sighed. I didn't like this but I didn't know what else to do. "What do you think girls?"

Morrigan nodded. "We should destroy it. The Adventurer's guild rules mention repeatedly that we're supposed to destroy demon-spawning dungeons. It's such a waste though, we could have gotten to observe a dungeon forming from the beginning."

"I agree with my sister," Torien said.

Everyone else in my group nodded along with Torien. Everyone here, myself included, took Morrigan's opinion the most seriously when it came to things like magic and mana. She knew more about it than us, and most other people for that matter. If she thinks it is a good idea, I'm inclined to agree.

I turned back to Jasper. "There you have it, I trust Morrigan's judgement here."

He sighed deeply. "Okay, I suppose I don't have any complaints. Will you even be able to destroy it? I can't even see the mana you're talking about."

I turned to Mimi, I almost expected her mouth to be salivating. "You think you can take care of it Mimi? You're probably the only one of us who could do something with it."

"Really! I can ea—"

I covered her mouth before she could finish. "Yes, you can take care of it. Just don't make too much of a scene. Will you be able to reach it from here?"

She was basically vibrating in excitement now. "I can! Oh but uh, maybe you should get all of the guards to leave?"

I turned to Jasper. "Uh, it may be dangerous to get rid of the mana knot while we're all standing inside of this... spatial zone? You should ask everyone to leave the room."

He looked at my group before nodding. "Fine but doesn't that apply to all of you? Wouldn't it be just as dangerous for you to stay as it would for all of us?"

"Uh..." I didn't really have a response and I turned back to my party who... also looked concerned now.

Torien turned to her sister. "What do you think Mori?"

She shook her head. "I honestly don't know what will happen. It probably would be a good idea for all of us to leave the room."

I closed my eyes for a heartbeat and took a breath. "I'll stay with Mimi just in case. Everyone else should leave."

Bella looked at the twins and Silva before turning back to me. "Okay. Be careful Lilith. Be careful Mimi."

I watched as everyone left the room other than me and Mimi. I turned to look at her. "Are you ready?"

She nodded. Despite the slight worry I could sense from her, I could also feel the intense anticipation that came from the prospect of eating the large knot of stagnant mana.

I took a deep breath. "Okay Mimi. Go ahead."

Her arm began to lengthen and her hand opened up into a mouth larger than the rest of her body so she could close up around the stagnant mana and eat it whole. It shut around the mana and for a heartbeat, nothing happened.

Then the bookshelves around the room violently exploded and before I knew what was happening, pain blossomed in the right half of my body and knocked me off my feet. The room shook as the space collapsed around us, shrinking the large library back into the office it had once been. The room was empty and bare now except for the two of us. The early afternoon sunlight filtered through the windows that hadn't been there moments before.