Past Life Hero, Chapter 48

Max crouched in a half-cave he'd found, nothing deep enough for anything or anyone to live in.  It wasn’t even big enough to hide in very well, but at least it gave the illusion of temporary safety. The moment he'd realized something had gone wrong, he'd immediately tried to find some sort of shelter. He'd been listening intently for danger as he’d repositioned. Lavinia must have sensed it because she hadn't said anything.

But now that he was taking stock of the situation, Max sent a question to his contracted spirit. What happened? This is definitely not goblin caves or dungeons or anything like that.

Lavinia's voice in his head sounded subdued. We got screwed.  Screwedzorz. Pwned. Feelsbad, gg.

Can you elaborate?  Maybe without leetspeak?

Lavinia's mental sigh echoed through Max's head, and the ghost girl appeared before him, more translucent than usual. She said, I was watching the tech like I said I would, but to be honest, I didn't understand what he was doing. The controls weren’t clearly labeled. They're just a bunch of knobs and switches and whatnot. He looked like he knew what he was doing, and I didn't know what he was doing. He was just some old guy and didn’t seem like a villain so I didn't sound an alarm. In a quieter voice, she said, I'm sorry.

Max leaned his head back against a rock and closed his eyes. His frustration was almost a physical thing, but taking it out on Lavinia wouldn't help anything. Based on what she said, she hadn't really done anything wrong, either. She, like him, was not an expert on central area Quartet tech.  They’d also assumed that odds of central area officials being crooked were slim since the workers would still need to work and most of the economy catered to students. He'd been naive again. Money in any form was a motivator for unscrupulous people.

Who knew?  Maybe it was worth it to sell out people like Max to Lifers just to get some ice cream on weekends.  Now that he was thinking about it, Max could even imagine how someone could justify it, reminding themselve that dying in the dungeon wasn’t actually real death..

…it was just potentially selling out X number of innocent people on some distant, dying world…

Okay, let's just not think about that, said Max. What else can you tell me about this place, or our situation in general?

Lavinia looked up before looking back down. You probably know almost as much about dungeons as I do by now. This is a conditional exit dungeon. You need to satisfy the requirements in order to get a portal out. It's spatially disconnected with the Quartet, which means that the time we return should be the same regardless of how much time we spend in here. Thinking about it from the perspective of the people that hate you, it was actually a clever way to go about this because... Her mental voice trailed off.

No, it's fine. Just give it to me straight, thought-spoke Max, his tone resigned.

Lavinia nodded. Understood. Sometimes there are technical problems with sending students to dungeons, but it's very rare, usually swept under the rug, and whenever it happens, the variance is usually only a few levels. So that explains why the tech didn't just send us to the highest level dungeon possible. The tech has plausible deniability now to get away with being paid off. But since you will come back at a specific time, if you manage to survive this dungeon, there can also be a second ambush set up. The central area officials are supposed to be incorruptible but this one obviously is paid off.  It wouldn't be difficult at all for your enemies to get your information through him.

Max punched his fist into his palm. Goddammit!  Damn that old man.  This is why I wanted to get a dungeon through one of the counters that aren't affiliated with the schools!

Yeah, but you didn't have that choice, mentally muttered Lavinia. You had to go through the one associated with your school first.  Ironically, if you’d done your first dungeon dive with other students, it would have been a lot harder for them to pull something like this.  Maybe they had a different plan if you had. Either way, it definitely helps explain why Regal and his brother stayed so quiet the last few weeks.  They were setting up traps for you.

If I make it back to the Quartet, I'm going to yell at someone about how seriously stupid this dungeon system is.

Lavinia didn't reply. Max asked, Do you know anything about this specific dungeon? I've read a few things about it but it's not attempted very often, right?

I think that's right. It's hard for students to bring down huge giants and most have figured it's not worth the risk over the years.  If you die here, your time in the Quartet is done.  And giants can take out an entire unprepared party..  Just one.

"Okay, what about enemies? Asked Max. I mean other than giants, obviously.

I don't know.

Fantastic.

Max crouched down and used a stick to doodle while he thought. He didn't speak out loud but continued to talk to Lavinia mentally. Okay, so we don't know how big the area is and we don't know what kind of enemies there are other than there have to be some giants. On top of that... He briefly closed his eyes as a wave of frustration ran through him, but opened them and began doodling again. The mana quality here is awful, even worse than the Quartet. In fact, much worse than the Quartet. So, I can't easily just wait it out and raise my mana body level. That means I need to get mana units. The only way to get mana units in a dungeon is to find treasure that might include them or to kill monsters. Everything I've said is correct so far, right?

Correct, agreed Lavinia.

All right, so my resources are my adventurer pack I brought and my spirits, which includes Lavinia and Slick. At the mention of the little spirit's name, Slick popped into existence, waved, and then disappeared again. Max hadn't known before this that his spirits could overhear when he was talking to one or the other, and he made a mental note of it.

He tapped his lips with a finger and thought. My advantages are: I don't need to eat or drink to keep going, although if I don't, I'll be very uncomfortable and might even lose muscle mass. I do need to sleep, but I have spirits to watch over me when I do. And I have plenty of experience in survival situations. So, the biggest issue I can see about getting out of here, if I can bring down giants by myself, is that I’m probably going to be ambushed in the Quartet immediately after getting back.  That means I don't want to be too clever in here to get back quickly even if I can.  I’ll just gonna catch a spear in the face the moment I'm out. Also, rules be damned, I am going to kill that fucking central area tech that sent me here, that old bastard.

That might not be a good idea, murmured Lavinia. Dead is dead for those people.

I don't fucking care, mentally growled Max. He tried to screw me over, but also people on Earth.  I am done playing by the rules when others don't. From now on, we're doing things my way. Playing for keeps.  But that means I need to get some power before heading back. Convictions without power are just wishes.

So you're not in a huge hurry to finish the dungeon, huh? said Lavinia. I mean, if you even can, she amended.

That's right. Besides, this is kind of like the whole situation in the Quartet to begin with, right? Like, why get done early, graduate early, if the time I arrive back on Earth doesn't correspond to my time in the Quartet? I might as well learn and grow as much as possible. In this situation, if I'm going to return to the Quartet in two days either way, I might as well get the most out of this that I possibly can.  I still have a few mana units left… Not enough to bring me to the second star mana body. But I'm not going to waste my time here.

He tapped his finger against his lips again. I think that’s everything.  It doesn't exactly make me feel any better, but at least I know what I should be doing right now.

And what's that? asked Lavinia.

I need to go scouting, said Max. He loosened his sword in the scabbard and ventured from not-a-cave, letting old experience seep into his body from memory, helping him move quietly through the woods.

When Max left his hiding place, he realized that he was in a small valley with a ring of forest near the edges where hills rose. Max moved directly to climb one of the hills. He wanted to get a better look at the surrounding area.  The climb was a bit noisy and when he reached the top, he almost immediately met his end.

In the nick of time, he pivoted to one side, resting against a rocky outcropping and stayed completely still. A dark shadow loomed between the large trees between his hill and another.  He dared not peek from behind his rock and instead mentally asked Lavinia what was going on as he heard branches snapping and the sound of forest detritus shifting.

Lavinia’s voice was horrified. It's really big.

Max thought fast, realizing that the giant must have been either resting or lying in wait after hearing his climb up the hill. Either way, the thing had to suspect that something was nearby now, even if it hadn’t seen him.

He had to hope.

Go across to the other hills on the other side of where the giant is and make some sort of noise. You can do that, right? Max asked.

Yes, but it'll take...

Just go! thought Max. You could move a chair before, you can do this.  Use a rock or something.

Lavinia vanished and Max tensed. Based on what he'd seen, or rather half-seen, this giant was not something he could fight by himself right now.  He also wasn't confident that he'd be able to outrun it. The sound of a massive body shifting, knocking down trees behind him made his nerves stand on end.

A shadow fell across his rock. The giant seemed to be looking for whatever had been making the noise earlier.

Suddenly, the sound of a rock clattering down the opposite hill made the searching giant ponderously spin around, its shadow moving back past where Max could see it. It took a few massive steps to the other hillside and Max could hear a thunderous crash.

Lavinia appeared in front of Max and her mental voice rang out in his head. Run back down the hill while it's distracted! It just slapped where I made some rocks move!

She didn't need to tell Max twice. Under the dubious protection of all the racket the giant was making, Max sprinted down the hill back to the valley.  He found some dense bushes that he rolled into before staying still. Then he focused on getting his breathing under control, staying quiet.

After what felt like an eternity later, he could hear thunderous, plodding steps as the giant on the other side of the hills began to move away. He didn't allow himself a sigh of relief until it was long gone.

Thanks for the assist, Lavinia, he sent. Saved my ass.  And all the other parts of me.

Any time, replied the ghost girl, but her mental voice was shaky.

Max was almost already over the scare. After all, this wasn't his first brush with death. But Lavinia had been more of a bookworm when she'd been alive. Is this the first time you've been in a dungeon? Max asked.

No, she said. The second. I had to go in one when I was a second year, but I never did it again, and that was a low level dungeon. This is a level five dungeon. That means it should take a group of fifth years working together to clear it.

Awesome, thought Max. He laid quietly until nightfall before moving again.

Did you wait until it's dark so the giants can't see? Lavinia asked.

Maybe. I don't know if they have better night vision, or if they have good night vision at all. But it doesn't hurt to stack the odds in my favor.

So you can see just fine?

Yup, he replied. Blade Sorcery.  Max diverted a bit of the native mana in his body to his eyesight and the night was peeled away for him. He was not nearly as helpless now as he might have been before achieving his first star mana body.

Up and moving again, this time he went to the other side of the valley before climbing the hill and descending into a hilly forest.

A sliver of a moon hung in the sky.  Under the cover of darkness, Max traveled and pondered his current situation. Killing one of the Giants might be possible but would be difficult. He hadn't even gotten a good look at one of them yet.  There were other unknowns too, like whether killing a giant would bring another giant to investigate the commotion. If there were only five giants, that was one thing but he had no idea if there were five or five hundred.

Max journeyed all night and never found a boundary or any kind of end to the dungeon. This place is massive" he thought to Lavinia.

The ghost girl agreed, It does seem to be and I've heard that some dungeons can be really huge.

Over the course of Max's stealthy hike, he'd spotted two more giants, both of which, after seeing them the distance, he'd gone far around to avoid. One had been sleeping, and the other merely staring at the sky, so he'd finally gotten a decent view of his enemies. They were all humanoid, but with shaggy fur and animalistic features. Both had horns and their upper bodies seemed disproportionately large for their legs. In some ways, they sort of looked like huge goat men.

The sun was starting to rise and Max did some more thinking before he decided to pick it up again after waking up.  He rested.

For several nights, Max ignored his hunger and thirst while getting a good feel for the dungeon. He eventually found three areas of notice. One was the giants’ camp where the leader must be. Two other points of interest were caves with obvious signs of occupancy.  One had fetishes made of bones and the other art drawn on the rocky walls in blood.

He'd discovered both by regarding the valley he'd initially appeared in as the nominal center of the dungeon. Assuming that the valley where he was supposed to appear, any places of interest shouldn't be too far away. It had been an absolute guess and he still didn't know if it was true but at least he'd found something other than just giants.

At this point, he was fairly sure there were about ten of the huge goat men roaming around. During his exploration, Max managed to set aside time to develop his mana body further but it was extremely slow going with so little mana in the atmosphere.  Max's mana units were truly beginning to run out.

He asked both Lavinia and Slick to appear, and with his two spirits in front of him, Max whispered, "Tomorrow I'm going to check out those caves and maybe see what's inside." Lavinia nodded and Slick was harder to read, but seemed more serious than usual.

Through the ease of long habit, Max forced his body to sleep lightly, but allowed himself a moment of dread mixed with excitement. Ever since he'd seen both caves, he'd wondered what was inside.