[DCI] Chapter 35 - A Shitty Assignment

Leaving the entrance to my apartment, we headed back to the kitchen and took care of the leftover meal boxes. Aisha washed the cutlery we had used in place of the plastic expendables, and I disposed of the packaging. Naturally, Rose whirred around us the entire time. We had already become used to the presence of the cheerful, pink orb in our lives.

“How much time left before we get to sneak a peek at our new workplace?” Aisha asked, turning off the tap.

I tossed her a small towel and flicked my wrist to wake up my smartwatch. “A bit over an hour.”

“Great. I can’t wait. It’s always so exciting, no matter how many times I experience it. You never know what kind of place you will get yourself in next.” She hummed joyfully.

“Yeah, I get it. I’m pretty much the same. Can’t stop thinking about it too,” I admitted. “It’s going to be hard trying to kill the remaining time but I think we’ve got a few decent activities to remedy that.”

“Besides pre-battle maintenance?” Aisha raised a brow at me.

“A good choice, and I would love to join you at it, but there’s at least one more thing we should give some of our attention to first. We still have the attribute points from the last two level-ups to spend.”

“Oh, right. That’s like fourteen if I’m not wrong.” She nodded enthusiastically. “Let’s get to it, then.”

Without further ado, we walked to my desk together and sat down in front of the monitor. A moment later, I was already in the DCI Hub.

“How’s the current shuffle, by the way?” Aisha asked curiously as I moved my mouse over the tiles.

Since the very moment we had gotten a new Subordinate Token, I’d been checking the Recruit submenu of the Subordinate Management section pretty much every time it refreshed, showing new templates to summon. The refresh option allowed you to bring a new set of character cards every twelve hours. So, I had a chance to find something interesting twice a day. Thrice if I timed the manual resets with the System-based one happening at midnight.

“Up till now, I haven’t seen anything more than decent, but we should have gained one reload chance already. Why not take a look?” I shrugged as we exchanged glances.

Quickly navigating to the correct place, I brought forth the twenty-four tiles with Class symbols over them.

“At first sight, nothing notable again.” Aisha scrunched her nose. “More ranged and magical options showed up at least. I’m pretty sure we’ve been running into mostly physical and melee Classes recently.”

“It might not look like anything useful right now but who knows how our situation changes after we learn the nature of our new Dungeon,” I said, idly tapping my finger on the mouse. “I would like to find someone good and versatile at magic next. Then, either a dedicated tank or a healer if we get another token off this job.”

“I can get behind that. The tankiest Classes are usually physical, or at least a major part of their kit is. It would be wise to expand our tricks a little more with me following the physical path now.” The drakan beauty tapped her lips while pondering over our options until they rose a little in a faint smirk. “Plus, female magicians are more easily impressed by wits and knowledge than simple brutes.”

I rolled my eyes at her but smiled back too. “I don’t know. So far, my sexy mind managed to capture a hundred percent of the simple brutes I encountered.”

A playful slug landed on my shoulder right after Aisha let out a snort and shook her head. We then chuckled together and returned our focus to the screen in front of us. Giving the pretty tiles one more glance, I returned to the main menu.

“What about using the creator?” My mate raised a brow at me.

“I looked at it yesterday. The choice is still so-so. I guess we would see some more sophisticated options at around Level 15 to 20 or higher. Templates still feel much better,” I answered.

“It still bothers you, doesn’t it?” Aisha asked, placing a hand on my shoulder.

I sighed softly. “Well, to some extent. But it’s nothing that would keep me off using it whenever the creator actually becomes a better choice. Putting someone’s soul into a different body, hand-tailored to my own likes, does seem a bit improper.”

“I have a feeling that you would totally design a body fully compatible with the Class we would be picking for it.” She shot me a wink.

“Perhaps, but it still happens somewhat subconsciously. A small change here, a tiny tweak there, and suddenly you end up with your ideal girlfriend.” I chuckled. “I don’t know. As I said, I won’t really brood over it whenever it turns out to be better than templates, you can be sure of that. My inner gamer is yearning to create a character so he might one day push out of his moral confines.”

“I wouldn’t mind letting you change my body more to your liking a little. As long as you don’t give me tits larger than my armor can fit.”

Snickering to the side, I caught her playful gaze. “There’s no part of your body which isn’t perfect already. On the other hand, I would literally use you as a template for another soul if I could.”

“Thank you.” A charming smile blossomed on Aisha’s lips. “But, are you sure you can handle two of me?”

“Fuck. I haven’t thought of that.” I fake-deadpanned at her, causing my beautiful partner to burst out laughing.

After she calmed back down, we finally moved to distribute our available stats. Since it was closer, I chose to bring out my status first.

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ATTRIBUTES

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Strength: 11 (+4)

Agility: 15 (+2)

Constitution: 15 (+2)

Intelligence: 20 (+1)

Wisdom: 17 (+1)

Leadership: 11

Charisma: 27

[Available Points: 14]

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“So, what are you going to do?” Aisha asked, scanning the numbers with her sharp eyes.

“Up Charisma by three, Leadership by four, so that I’m at a nice one-to-two ratio with thirty and fifteen respectively. That’s half points gone. Next, I guess Intelligence by five and the remaining two into Wisdom since it’s one of the important stats for my Class,” I explained while tapping the plus symbols.

“I see. I assume you will bring Wisdom to twenty next time we gain some more points. It should be ten if I’m not mistaken since we’ll be Level 11,” she pondered out loud.

Meanwhile, I felt a tiny, barely noticeable wave of heat spread around my heart, placing my hand over my chest. Aisha glanced at me curiously and I met her gaze.

“All good. Just felt a bit warm suddenly. I don’t think it’s a heart attack or such.”

She chuckled and flashed me a cordial smile. “I’m pretty sure that’s just your spiritual energy. I’ve been told by the more mana-sensitive Classes that you can feel the changes in your Soul Band when you distribute stats. The accumulated energy you get from kills and other activities is finally spent and fused with your circuits and body.”

“Oh, right. J’s letter did explain that it was like cultivation or something. The System helps you assimilate that energy, letting you skip hours of meditation or other necessary techniques.” I nodded to myself. “My Mana Control might be at play here.”

“Possibly.” Aisha shrugged. “My turn now?”

“Of course.”

I quickly navigated to the Subordinate Management menu and brought up her stats.

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ATTRIBUTES

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Strength: 40

Agility: 15

Constitution: 15

Intelligence: 9

Wisdom: 6

Perseverance: 11

Fury: 20

[Available Points: 14]

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“What would you personally do?” I asked to prod Aisha a bit for her thoughts on the matter.

“Hmmmm…” She stroked her chin sagely. “Since my Strength is decently high… I could boost my Agility and Constitution in preparation for the upcoming spike in difficulty… Or perhaps mirror what you did and take Fury to thirty and Perseverance to fifteen. That’s exactly fourteen points.”

“Nice. See? You can be smart when you give it some effort too.” I smirked.

Aisha squinted her dazzling, crimson eyes at me but a wide smile curved her luscious lips.

“I could easily go with either of these options,” I continued. “One makes you stronger, the other makes you tankier, raising your survivability. It boils down to your preference.”

“You should know well what my preference is.” She gave me a wink. “Time to get even more furious.”

“You can always add those four points to Agility. Then, you will be fast and furious.” I waggled my brows at her, knowing perfectly well that my reference would go straight over her head.

Maybe one day I would introduce my fierce drakan to this classic, after we'd get her more used to my world and the metal carriages.

And, with that, we were done distributing our hard-earned attribute points. We would need to wait a little longer before we could test ourselves in a battle to see if it had any noticeable changes in the handling of our bodies and abilities. Hopefully, we wouldn’t get another Dungeon with super durable inhabitants like the Woodmen.

“We are saving the random boxes for our new friend, right?” Aisha turned her face to me and I easily recognized her expression.

“Don’t worry. You will get to open them soon. I promise.” I smiled at her. “For now, let’s check our supplies and consumables. We should restock whatever we are low on, then maybe get the maintenance done.”

“As you wish. I’ll get started with it already while you go through the shop and market. You know much better what we have and what we lack.” Aisha stood up, placed a peck on my cheek, and walked away. “Do you have any plans for the Residence Upgrade Permit already?”

“Many,” I replied, switching my attention to the PC after admiring her mesmerizing butt and tail for a brief moment. “But, it depends on who joins us. And no, I’m not thinking about another bedroom. That would be a waste of a good permit.”

She snorted from somewhere behind me. “You better. Or that would be the fanciest, priciest bedroom I’d ever seen. I wouldn’t be surprised if you can get a royal bedchamber for it.”

“If it becomes necessary, I’ll just buy a five-by-five or ten-by-five space and throw some simple furniture there,” I explained. “Instead, I thought more about a workshop or something. We didn’t get any amazing production Classes in our shuffles yet but a man can dream. I’ll save it for now.”

“Yeah, with our budget, it’s smart. We are over ten grand and we still haven’t really touched our spoils of war from the Woodman Dungeon. I bet you that we could double it if we sold a good chunk of our stuff. If only Darksteel Ore wouldn’t take ages to smelt.”

I shrugged. “As you said, we are not pressed for money. We might get more furnaces soon. Let me know if you would like to help with maintenance.”

“Sure. Though, out of the two of us, I think I’m much more proficient at polishing hilts than you are.”

I snorted. Now, I wouldn’t be able to get that damn image out of my head. She’d known exactly what to say.

We spent about three quarters tending to our respective tasks. I used the Inventory submenu to track all our items and ordered what was missing. Besides being able to list everything we had stored in our dedicated storage chamber with quite some additional details, it even had a history tab.

Anything that had been taken out of the room or the chests would show up in that tab. It was a really neat feature. It even color-coded the entries, painting them yellow if the item had been only taken out of the storage, and painting them red if it had left the safe space of my apartment, not returning back. It helped in finding, sorting, and managing things a lot.

Rose mostly accompanied me. Her preference was clear, even though she floated to Aisha now and then. That only gave my mischievous companion more opportunities to tease me, saying how I could even seduce Pixies without breaking a sweat. Therefore, I made that Pixie zap her repeatedly for a minute.

After we were done, the three of us gathered back by the PC and waited for the upcoming announcement. I tracked the timer on my phone while Aisha browsed the D-Shop a little, mostly admiring the clothes Earth offered. She had grown to like discovering new things and you couldn’t deny that fashion was one of the most diverse aspects of this realm, which could easily be compared to other ones.

Then, finally, the countdown reached zero and our devices buzzed at the same time. A notification icon flashed in the top right corner of the monitor, immediately stealing Aisha’s attention from the goth-themed clothing section she was examining at that moment. As she glanced at me, I gave her a nod, and she navigated to the Assignments menu. Thanks to being Bonded, she could do almost everything I could, after we had customized the settings a little.

“Here it goes,” she said, tapping the flashing tile.

We saw three entries on the list, with two of them grayed out, the ones we had previously cleared.

“Looks like they didn’t throw us into deep water right off the bat,” I mused. “Another Beginner Dungeon, huh.”

“Well, that’s true, but they can have different difficulties too. Besides, easy money and experience.” Aisha smiled at me and unrolled the details of our new job.

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BEGINNER DUNGEON 02

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Type: Group (2-4)

Remaining Time: 20d 23h 58m

Clear Condition: Source of Contamination Removed

Environment: Stone Catacombs

Environmental Hazards: Minor Diseases

Common Monster Strength: Lv. 07-09

Rare Monster Strength: Lv. 09-12

Boss Monster Strength: Lv. 12-15

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“I might have jinxed us with that talk about deep water.” I chuckled wryly. “It seems that we will finally meet at least one more Defender during our delves.”

“If they aren’t complete jerks, this will be even easier, then,” Aisha comforted me with her palm on my thigh. “And, if someone does try to cross the line, we can whip them back to shape in a blink. We have a true Overlord on our side.”

“I kind of wanted to hide my Class not to be associated with those slave drivers,” I admitted.

“Understandable. You can still do it. I don’t mind playing along. You can trick people with that Armsweaving of yours while I just act as the Berserker that I am. Simple.”

“I’m afraid it’s not that simple.” I shook my head.

“Why?”

“It might work at first, but then it can get extremely dangerous really quick. It says that there can be up to four people in the Dungeon. If it actually has four Defenders, when we all run into each other or agree to meet, there will be at least five of us,” I explained.

“Oh. I didn’t think of that.” Aisha frowned a little. “Yeah, this can be bad, especially if we tell the people we meet early that we both are Defenders and just stumbled on each other. Shit, this does make it complicated.”

“Unfortunately. I hoped that the System would only show that the Dungeon is a group one, without specific numbers, like it marked the others as solo Dungeons. But, you can’t have everything.”

“Can’t you assume a different Class? We talked about Commander sometime ago. It works in a similar way, no?” Aisha suggested, visibly putting effort into thinking of a solution.

“Commander and Guide can technically add other players to their party, even if temporarily, so that would be risky if someone knew about it and asked me to include them for the buffs. But, don’t worry. I should be able to recall a fitting Class. Worst case scenario, I’ll just deal with the odd glances I might get.”

“Hmmmm… Alright. Let’s move on to the clear condition.”

“It’s even vaguer than before,” I commented. “Who knows what the source of corruption can be in catacombs?”

“I just hope it’s not a Lich or worse. We aren’t ready to face such a monster yet,” Aisha added.

“Did you have the pleasure to fight one in the past?” I glanced at her curiously.

“Pleasure is the farthest from it.” She snorted. “It was anything but fun, I tell you. We barely made it. Those fuckers wield mana in the most unpredictable ways. And, this makes me realize, the Dungeon will most likely be swarmed by Skeletons and other undead.”

“Physical Resistance?” I raised a brow at her.

“Not to an unbelievable level but anything besides blunt weapons will certainly have an issue. I’m really glad I have my Sharpen and Sunder, even though I can’t use them indefinitely.” Aisha sighed.

“If it doesn’t deviate from the info added to the game, fire and other magic should work just fine on the bony boys. Obviously, the holy element would be the best. Too bad we didn’t see any in the current shuffle.” I rubbed the back of my neck.

“It’s pretty much confirmed, then. We are going for a magic user next,” my drakan mate stated.

“Maybe we won’t have to. Let’s make the decision after we learn who the other people assigned to this Dungeon are. All we know, they could all be casters, and a better option would be to get a tank early to keep them somewhat safe,” I shared my thoughts.

“True. Even if they are stingy with information about themselves, it should be easy to figure out their way of fighting just from observing them.” Aisha nodded. “Alright. Next, the hazards. Minor diseases are the worst. Ugh. It also confirms that we might have to deal with rotten flesh and such.”

“Anything you can tell me about your experiences with those? I know some but I mostly saw them as negative statuses on this screen. Real life might be a tad different.”

“Ever had a sudden, explosive diarrhea which basically blasted your asshole open?” She raised a brow at me.

“Ah, shit.”

“Yeah, with the emphasis on shit.” Aisha snickered. “I don’t have it that bad with my attire, but trust me, you don’t want to be near a Paladin or a fully armored Knight when the dam breaks. They never make it out of their armor in time.”

I shuddered, trying my best not to imagine that.

“That’s just one thing, obviously, but it illustrates the level of inconvenience the best,” my fierce companion continued. “Take the worst times you felt sick and multiply the intensity tenfold or so. I kid you not by saying that you will wish to have been stabbed instead. Or straight up dead.”

“Fun.” I shook my head with an awkward smile. “Making ourselves as impervious to any of that as possible becomes our utmost priority right this instant. We can’t turn into chocolate fountains in the middle of a fight. A healer would really be the best option here. Maybe I should consider the creator in the end…”

“Let’s not rush it.” Aisha squeezed my thigh. “We have money. We can see what the stores offer. Besides, it should be fine to take a peek outside of our home. I don’t believe I’ve been thrown into a truly dangerous or inhabitable area during my entire career. The entrances may possibly be handpicked or something.”

I nodded at her and we browsed the D-Shop and D-Market for about half an hour. In between purchases, I visited the Wiki to learn more about minor diseases and catacombs as an environment in general. A bunch of the diseases were mentioned there so we hastily stocked up a bit on the consumables fighting those. Just to be safe, we bought some general mixtures which supposedly boosted your immune system by leaps and bounds.

Nothing beats magical vitamins, heh.

After the doorbell rang, we moved to the door together, wielding our respective weapons. I glanced through the peephole and quickly confirmed that we were truly connected to something looking like a spooky stone corridor. Black metal torches hung over the dark gray walls, burning with blue fire.

I couldn’t see any danger so I unlocked the door and slowly opened it, letting Aisha peek out first, alongside Rose, who bolted outside and stopped by the high ceiling. We stepped into the ominous hallway and glanced around. Our apartment entrance was embedded into one of the corridor walls like countless other doors spanning both sides.

Honestly, it looked quite comical. All that decay and destruction everywhere around, and then there was our apartment door, squeaky clean and fully modern. It stuck out like a sore thumb amongst all the crumbling wood filling the other archways.

Looking both ways to make sure that nothing was coming, we shoved the Dungeon Express package inside and returned to the safety of our little nest. Unpacking the goods, we sorted everything properly in the storage, leaving ourselves a few vials and pills for the upcoming scouting operation.

As we geared up, I spent some time staring at the twenty-four Class tiles in the Recruit submenu, trying to wage the usefulness of each of the displayed options. I didn’t want to miss something important and realize that after the choices reloaded. That was just the worst feeling in the world.

Soon, we were all ready, as much as we could be. We downed our respective all-purpose potions and headed out. Aisha had her trusty greataxe while I equipped the mace and one handaxe to my belt, and let the other, bonded axe magically glue itself horizontally to my lower back, without touching it, of course. Rose kept close, circling either of us.

A new adventure awaited us.