Day 15 Afternoon - The devil in the details

“So you can’t see the details?” I muttered as I crossed my arms.

I was still talking to Razzie, thought the scenery have changed. At the moment, we were sitting around a fancy wooden round table on the open veranda. Honestly, the more I saw of the estate, the more it reminded me of some quiet mountain hotel at a ski resort, except instead of a mountainside, it was built on a ridge in a remote corner of the dungeon cavern.

We moved outside after my host complained about the air in the library getting stuffy, and I didn’t mind a change of scenery either. We talked about a lot of boring but necessary things related to the workings of the dungeon, but then we ran into an unexpected surprise.

“No, I can't,” Razzie affirmed.

“Then what do you see? Can you tell me step by step?”

“Well, you see, when I use my Authority to see how strong a creature is, it first creates this book.”

“It makes… a book,” I echoed him, and he gave me a timid nod.

“Y-Yes. Then, the book opens, and there is this diagram that lets me see the strengths and weaknesses of the creature.”

“Can you draw it for me?”

“I’ll… try.”

Saying so he took the pen from my hand and began awkwardly drawing a circle divided into three quarters.

“The color of the diagram tells me how strong the creature is, and each segment is filled up depending on how they are at the time. This segment goes down if they are hurt, this one goes down if they are tired, and the bottom one goes down if they cast spells.”

I looked at the picture in front of me and slowly nodded.

“I think I understand. So you don’t see the levels of the creature or the individual stats, but you can guess them based on this diagram. It doesn't seem to tell you anything about the three attributes though. And what did you say? You get this in a book?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm… Maybe the status panels appear differently based on what the person expects. What about skills?”

“Skills?”

“Things like [Fire Magic], or [Leadership], or [Dominance]? Can you see those?”

“I… I'm truly sorry, but I don’t know what you're talking about.”

“Is that so?”

I fell silent for a long time. Apparently, even the floor-master of a dungeon was only scarcely aware of the System. Maybe because he had a low Insight score? Also, my expectations seemed to color the way I perceived things as well. I came here expecting an RPG system, so I'm seeing numerical stats and skills like I would in a video game, but for the inhabitants of this world, they would perceive them in a more abstract way.

However, people certainly were leveling up and gaining skills, as proven by the discussion between the adventurers I've overheard, so it's likely that my own understanding of the System was pretty close to the mark.

I might have been silent for too long, as Razzie started fidgeting at my side and finally cleared his throat to get my attention.

“You see, if… if you really wish for a more precise answer, I believe the great sage of the fae is said to possess the ability to discern the qualities of anything he looks at. He calls it [The Power of Observation].”

Now that perked up my interest.

“Really?”

“Yes! While it might be hard to get hold of him, I believe I should be able to use my connections among the upworlders to summon him here.”

“Hm? Oh, no no no. I don’t actually need him. I already have that skill.”

“You… you do?”

“Yes, I was just surprised it is held in such high regard. It’s a skill you get for free once your Insight attribute gets high enough.”

The big guy blinked at me a few times and then timidly asked, “Could you repeat that, please? You get it for thirty what?”

“Insight. It’s one of those the three main attributes. You can't seem to see them, but they influence the Health, Stamina, and Mana stats you can perceive. You just don’t have the numbers.”

“I understand, I think.” Razzie was visibly hesitating for a second before he lowered his voice and asked, “Could you, maybe, tell me my Insight?”

I thought for a while, and instead of trying to explain the whole Low-Mid-High thing, which even I didn't completely understand, I figured it would be better to simplify it for him a little. So, if I had to put them into numerical terms, then [None] would be zero, [Supreme] would be 10, and the rest of the stages in-between.

“I do you one better," I told him, and after quickly converting the attributes on his status panel, I explained, "You have a Body of 4, a Mind of 3, an Insight of 3, three Skills, and two Traits.”

“Errr… Can I borrow your pen and paper again? I wish to write these down.”

“Well, it’s your pen and paper to begin with, but here.”

“Thank you very much.”

After taking the wiring utensils, Razzie hastily scribbled down a couple lines onto a piece of paper using the previously mentioned hieroglyph writing system, and finally he glanced up at me with eyes that for the first time seemed enthusiastic.

“Are these numbers good?”

“Well…” I hesitated for a moment, not knowing how to answer that question. “It all depends on who you are comparing them with.” Just as I said that, I noticed that the door leading to the veranda on the back opened and two of Razzie’s maids came out. “Ah, speak of the devil.”

“Devil? Where?” Razzie craned his neck in alarm, prompting me to let out a tired sigh.

“It’s just an idiom. I meant that we were just talking about comparing stats, and there are some candidates right there.”

While I said that the two women came to our table. One of them was the familiar imp Alvilia, while the other was the third maid, a gloomy faced young fae woman with ash-blonde hair in a bun and a pale complexion. She was carrying a silver tray with a cup of tea and a plate full of biscuits in her hands.

“Refreshments,” she spoke taciturnly and placed the tray onto the table.

“Yes, we decided to come out and ask Lord Raznok what he wishes to have for dinner, and we thought we bring something to drink and some snacks for the meantime.” Alvilia interjected with a grin. “Try them, they are full of—“ The gloomy maid elbowed her in the kidney without changing her expression to the slightest. “Owww! Taste! I wanted to say taste!”

I purposefully ignored the rambunctious imp and quickly observed the other woman.

Name: Amaria Level: 7 Experience: 268

Classification: Humanoid Race: Fae

Health: 50/50 Stamina: 99/120 Mana: 50/50

Body: Low(Mid) Mind: Low(Mid) Insight: Low(Low)

I coughed softly to get Razzie’s attention and then pointed at the blonde maid.

“She is two, two, one.”

At first he looked at me funny, but then he glanced down at the paper in front of him and then he quickly scribbled the numbers down.

“I see, I see.”

“I don’t see any skills on her though, but she should be around the humanoid baseline at level seven, wouldn’t she?”

“Yes, I believe so,” Razzie nodded twice while looking at the paper and then he grinned at me. “I guess my numbers aren’t half bad.”

“Well, you still have a long way to go though. Shorkuz was around eight, seven, seven, if I remember correctly, and way too many traits and skills.”

The big guy shuddered and then sheepishly scratched his goatee.

“W-Well… comparing myself to a dragon seems a little unfair.”

“Yeah, I guess so.” I answered absent-mindedly while I picked up a tea-biscuit from the tray and muttered, “I wonder what’s in this one…”

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing,” I smiled innocently and put the biscuit back down.

At the same time, Amaria cleared her throat and said, “May we ask for the presence of Master Raznok?”

It took me a second to realize she was talking to me, so Alvilia spoke up to fill the silence.

“Lord Raznok haven’t gone to bed last night, right? Ammy was supposed to be on night shift last night, and since she was skipped over, we thought we should put the shifts in order with a threeso— Ouch!”

After she removed her elbow from the talkative imp’s side, Amaria cleared her throat.

“Please come.”

I glanced between the two and at last shrugged my shoulders.

“It’s fine. I wanted to think about some things anyway.”

“Are you sure?” Razzie asked back uncertainly. “I… I don’t want to be a bad host, you see…”

“It’s fine, it’s fine.” I waved my hand dismissively, and at last the three of them left. After I was sure they were out of earshot I finally relaxed and hung my head. Acting like an inscrutable and super-powerful being was really tiring. No wonder Razzie had those bags under his eyes.

But forget about that. Now that there was a moment of peace and quiet, it was time to sort out my thoughts. First off, I opened the Dungeon Management Interface (or DMI, if you will), and navigated to the map tab, which gave me a nice overhead view of the entire floor.

As far as I've gathered, Razzie had no idea I've borrowed his Administrative Privilege (AP from now on), so I had access to everything on the first floor of the dungeon, even the territories of other Area Guardians (which I'm not going to shorten to AG, because there is a limit to everything).

The floor-plan of the, well, floor, looked like a giant doughnut from up above. I think the actual shape had a name, like torus or something, but I liked the doughnut analogy better. In practical terms the floor could be divided into two distinct parts: The large, mostly circular cavern that was represented by the dough in our analogy, and then there was the labyrinth, which was the equivalent of the doughnut-hole in the middle.

The labyrinth itself was under the direct control of the Floor Master. It was a perfect square inside the huge rock pillar in the middle of the cavern, filled to the brim with the corridors I got really familiar with during my first couple of days in this new world. While I knew it was big, after some quick calculations based on the width of a single corridor, I had to conclude that just the labyrinth area was at least a fifty square kilometers, and I was probably undershooting that. I could have probably spent months down there without a guide and I wouldn’t have been able to find my way out. And since the labyrinth portion was at best a tenth of the size of the whole floor… holy shit, this place was huge!

But enough about the labyrinth, let’s look at the cavern, shall we? The main dungeon floor was divided into three areas, denoted as 1-A, 1-B and 1-C, respectively. I was officially in control of 1-B, which was the biggest of the three sections. It was a mostly hilly territory with a few creeks and covered in large fungus-trees. 1-A was slightly smaller, and it was similar to my area, except it was covered in web due to it being dominated by White Widows. It was the same area where I went to rescue the goblins, and apparently the Ancient White Widow had her lair there. It made me wonder: if the white widow was the Area Guardian of 1-B, but she lived in 1-A, who was the Area Guardian of 1-A? I made a mental note about asking Razzie to introduce them to me someday.

Now the third area was a tricky one. It was a swampland with several tribes of sahuagin living there. Sahuagins were kind of like aquatic goblins, short humanoids with spindly builds living in tribal societies, except they had fins, could breathe underwater, and since the spiders had a hard time navigating in the swamps, they were left mostly to their own devices.

It was around this time that I reached for a biscuit to absentmindedly chew on something while I was thinking, but my train of thought was interrupted by a soft gasp. I paused and looked up from the panel in front of me, just in time to catch a glimpse of a tuft of red hair retreating behind the corner of the veranda. I let out a sigh and put on my ‘inscrutable powerful being’ mask before I cleared my throat.

“Please come out. It’s rude to spy on people eating.”

After a few seconds of hesitation, the fourth maid cautiously poked her head around the corner. She was short, about as tall as I was in my current form, and she had short, curly red hair, freckles, large brown eyes, and a round face that made her look somewhat childish.

Name: Eriza Level: 7   Experience: 269

Classification: Humanoid   Race: Human

Health: 40/40 Stamina: 81/95  Mana: 100/100

Body: Low(Low)  Mind: Low(High) Insight: Low(Low)

Skills:

*Lore Lv1 (Herbs)

I waved for her to come over, and after some fidgeting, she finally made up her mind and approached me. I purposefully played with the biscuit between my fingers while I waited, and once she stood next to me I gestured towards the chair Razzie previously occupied.

“Would you care to sit down?”

“I… I’m on duty.”

I nodded with a smile and pointed at the chair again.

“Isn’t it the duty of the maid to entertain the guests while the lord of the house is away?”

“I… wouldn’t know.”

I finally rolled my eyes and with a sharp gesture I told her, “Just sit down, okay? It is awfully boring to sit here all alone.”

“Yes!” she squeaked and then immediately sat down, but then she stayed silent and only glanced between me and the biscuit in my hand.

“Is there something wrong?” I asked innocently while raising the biscuit to my mouth.

“N-Nothing! It’s just that… uum… you might, maybe, shouldn’t eat that biscuit.”

“Really? Why?”

“It’s… uuum… It might not be very good?”

“Oh, really?” I put the biscuit between my thumb and index finger and put up a show of inspecting it. “Hmmm… I see nothing wrong with it.” I smirked at the nervous girl at my side and quickly threw it into my mouth.

Eriza let out a shocked gasp while I slowly chewed on the pastry. It was actually surprisingly tasty and… oh, look, here it was. I opened the panel that just popped up and shook my head in disappointment.

“Laxative again? How boorish.”

It was quite amusing seeing the color drain from her face and her eyes opening wide. It took her a few seconds, but after she successfully reigned in her nerves she tentatively whispered, “You knew?”

“Of course I knew,” I answered with a wink and then I promptly bit into another biscuit. “Mm. These are actually pretty good, poison notwithstanding. Did you make them?”

“Y-Yes,” the girl answered sheepishly while averting her eyes, but then she suddenly became flustered and continued; “B-But it’s not poison! It’s medicine! It’s just… uuum…”

“Yes, I figured,” I nodded sagely while munching on another biscuit, much to her discomfort. “You're a herbalist, right Eriza?”

“I worked with herbs but…” Suddenly she paused and then she looked at me funny for a moment before she caught herself and looked away.

“Is there a problem?”

“It’s just… I don’t remember introducing myself, so I was a little surprised you knew my name.”

“Ah, I know a lot of things. For example, I know that you are the smartest person in this mansion. Except for me, of course.” She stayed silent, obviously not getting the jest, so I continued, “Which makes me wonder; just what makes a clever girl like you try to poison me?”

“I-it wasn’t poison!” she insisted with a face on the verge of crying. “It was medicine.”

“Well, I grant you that, none of the things inside the food and drinks were dangerous. Laxatives, sleeping drugs… oh, and there was that one that was supposed to give me rashes. How was that a medicine again?”

She glanced up at me like I just hurt her pride, and then she muttered, “It was an extract from the root of the yellowcap reed. When prepared correctly, it is a potent painkiller, but if it is boiled, it gives people rashes instead.” She once again paused and then hastily added, “B-But it was just an innocent prank, I swear!”

“I believe you, but you still didn’t answer my original question: why would a smart girl like you do that?”

“Hauuu… It’s because the others asked me to.”

“So it was a group effort, just as I thought. Why though?”

“We were… I-I mean, they were jealous.”

“Jealous?” I repeated after her before drinking some tea. “Jealous about what?”

“Uu… They… They think that you are the new mistress of Lord Raznok.”

I gave her a skeptical look, but she seemed to be perfectly serious.

“… Excuse me,” I told her as I put down the teacup in my hand, and then I immediately broke out into uncontrolled, manic laughter that lasted for several seconds before I managed to calm down. “Aha… Ahaha… Whew… Sorry for that. I haven’t had a good laugh like this in ages.”

“Hauu…”

“Oh, right. You probably don’t get why I was laughing. Anyways, I'm surprised Razzie didn’t tell you about it yet, but I'm definitely not in that kind of relationship with him.”

“You're not?”

“No. I'm the newly appointed Area Guardian of 1-B.”

“1-B? The area where Old Widow nests?”

“Oh?” Before I knew it, I found myself making one of those intrigued, only-one-eyebrow raised expressions. “So you know about these things.”

“Lord Raznok sometimes talked about his duties to me, yes.”

“That makes things easier,” I told her with a smile. “You see, I accidentally blew up the big spider, so the dungeon master told me to replace her for the time being. I was sent here so that Razzie could explain to me the basics of being an Area Guardian.”

“Oh, I see now.” She nodded, seemingly more relaxed, but then she suddenly shuddered and shrunk back again. “W-Wait! You mean, you killed the Old Widow?”

“Yes.”

“But… The Old Widow was the strongest Area Guardian on the first floor! And she lived in the middle of the Cocoon Forest, surrounded by White Widows!”

“Yeah, I kind of blew half the forest up too. I was told I'll have to fix that up as well, thought I just realized it was in another Area Guardian’s domain. I'll figure something out.”

“But… How could you… I mean…”

“Well, I had a little help to be honest, and… Oh, speak of the devil.”

“Devil? Where?” Eriza looked around in a panic, and I couldn’t help but chuckle.

Meanwhile I greeted Little Flame who just flew to my side, still in its previous winged fire-serpent form. I told it to find Smaragd and somehow communicate to her that I was all right, and it just came back. I petted the, by now slightly less ominous, creature on the head, much to my conversation partner’s confusion.

“Oh, right. You cannot see Little Flame. Remember how I told you I had some help when I blew up the big spider? It was Little Flame right here.”

“I still cannot see anything,” Eriza muttered while squinting.

“Hmmm… Maybe if I do this…” Saying so, I activated freeform Fire Magic and created a string of flame hovering in the air. Little Flame let out a chirping noise and then flew right into it. A moment later, its form burst into real, crimson flames and it began happily circling around our heads.

I glanced back down at the girl at my side, and to my surprise I found her staring at the fiery winged snake above with wide-eyed bewilderment before she half-sputtered and half-screamed, “E-E-ELEMENTAL?!”

Before I could say a word she tried to jump out of her chair, but the hem of her dress got caught up on the arm-rest, making her stumble and fall face-first onto the floor.

“Oooow!”

She began rolling on the floor while cradling her head with her arms, audibly sobbing. I looked at her, then at Little Flame, who in the meantime landed on my shoulder and entwined its lukewarm body around my arm, and we both rolled our eyes in unison.