The Runesmith

Roland was looking at some coins on the table, the numbers hovering above them indicated the sum. It was a number above 100 which would put it above one large silver coin. He then looked at bar wench snatching that large sum, leaving three large pitchers of unidentified booze behind. There were already some bottles spread out that were open and half empty.

"What you looking at Roland? Drink up!"

Sahildr shouted out while she herself grabbed one of the large pitchers and started drinking directly from it. Roland wasn’t sure what kind of alcohol was in there, but it was dripping down this muscular woman’s mouth and right onto the table. He had been doing business with the girls for a couple of weeks now and they were having a little party at the local tavern. He had apparently gotten through the trial period and they now wanted to go deeper into the dungeon with him.

"You sure you should be bringing a minor here?"

Roland narrowed his eyes at the three girls. Even though he was an older gentleman on the inside, on the outside he was a ten-year-old. His party members thought that he was slightly older and apparently in this world after you obtained your first class, you were considered an adult. There was no such thing as an age cut of for drinking, so they didn’t see anything wrong with this situation.

"Minor? what’s that? Is that some good liquor?"

Rebecca asked while pouring herself a tall glass of the alcoholic beverage then chugging down on it. Roland was amazed at how well these two girls were handling their alcohol, even if he thought back to his old college days he couldn’t recall anyone being this much of a binge drinker as these two.

"I guess no one cares as long as they have the money for it..."

He grumbled under his nose, mostly saddened by the fact that he got peer pressured into chipping in. He lost a whole twenty large copper coins that were worth close to four goblins. He suddenly felt someone’s hand on his shoulder and spotted the third party member looking at him.

It was Reyna the wolf girl, her face was all read and her wolf ears were twitching all over the place. She had an uncharacteristic shit-eating grin plastered all over her face.

"Rlaond whut ae ya dotign, drink with bing shis!"

She was already quite drunk and pushing a glass of booze against his face. The moment he got a whiff of it he almost gagged.

’How can these people drink this?’

He started pushing the white wolf girl away with both his hands, but the stat difference started getting apparent as she didn’t budge from her spot.

"You sure are chatty today..."

He bobbed and weaved while trying to evade the smelly cup of alcohol. The wolf girl was quite persistent with her assaults the other two just watched and laughed from the side.

"Dis is a ruight of pasuge! Druink upppu!"

She jabbed her finger into Roland’s side which made him open up his mouth. The wolf girl’s eyes shown in a golden hue as she skillfully deposited the beverage into his gullet. At least that’s how it looked like from her perspective, in reality, she just splashed the whole thing onto the young boy’s face.

Roland closed his eyes and spit most of the alcohol out but some made its way down his throat. It had a familiar cheap taste and also he could feel it burning his throat.

’Bah, this is badly distilled booze!’

He was a drinker as any college student but after one night of heavy drinking, he had sworn never to drink again. He had a criminally weak stomach and had to suffer each day after such events so he had decided to just stop.

Sahildr and Rebecca decided to join in on the fun. They held him tightly and forced more alcohol down his mouth. The two watched the liquid slide down one of the bottles as the boy chugged.

"Hic"

"Drink up boy, men have to be able to hold their liquor!"

"Hic"

The rest of the night was a blur. He remembered vomiting quite a bit while dancing with his shirt off on the tavern table, some other people were cheering him on while shouting out his Goblin Slayer nickname. He woke up on the other day in an unfamiliar room at some in. He was with the rest of his party members that were passed out. His head was killing him along with his back as he spent the night face down on the hard wooden floor while the girls were sharing one bed together.

"Oof...my head...urp..."

He held his hand over his mouth and bolted out of the room. He managed to run outside the inn door and then instantly vomited again, the people just gave him some side glances as this wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.

’I need to get out of this city before those three idiots kill me...’

He wiped his mouth with his forearm and dragged his body back into the inn. This one wasn’t the one that he was using, so he concluded that his female party members must have dragged him here. He couldn’t recall much from what happened last night, he got drunk rather fast and it didn’t take long for him to lose it.

’Guess I have a weak stomach in this new body too...’

He returned to the room that his three ’friends’ were. He was greeted to a funny sight of the two smaller girls sprawled out under the taller girl. Her feet were placed on the faces of Rebecca and Reyna, she herself had her head dropped down at the edge of the bed that was too short to contain her whole height. He had a vacant expression on his face while looking at his three smelly party members.

’Man... they are even snoring...’

Roland didn’t drink all that much and passed out fast. His party members continued drinking into the night. This was why they were still passed out while he himself was already on his feet. Roland’s image of how girls were cute and beautiful creatures was shattered this day, the smell in this room was also something to remember.

He grabbed his clothes and removed himself from the room. He needed to drink some water, there were also special potions to alleviate hangovers. He was just too stingy to buy it and would rather use the money for something else. He returned to his own inn and flopped on his bed, still hungover. He had noticed that he had gained alcohol resistance, which made him think that he could probably get some other resistances in a similar way.

’Do I really want to eat poison to get more resistance?’

The first thought was to eat some mild poison and get that. Having poison resistance could prove quite handy but he wasn’t in a safe enough place to test this out. He also would need to spend some cash on poison cures if he ever attempted it.

He tried resting after drinking some water but his stomach was still rumbling. He and the girls were supposed to head into the lower floors of the dungeon this day, but from his standpoint that would have to wait till the next day. To his surprise, he heard a knock on his door followed by the voice of the party leader, Becky.

"Hey, Roland, why didn’t you come to the adventurers guild. We were supposed to meet up half an hour ago!"

The girl burst into the room looking just fine. She didn’t look like someone that had drunk herself to sleep the night before. They were going to meet up but he had thought that the small expedition would be put on hold. The girls had other plans apparently. After getting forced to get into his armor and robe he was yoinked outside and carried over like a sack of potatoes to the dungeon entrance by Sahildr. He theorized that the three females had built up alcohol resistance over the years and made a full recovery the next day.

"You need to learn how to hold your liquor Roland, don’t worry big sis will teach you!"

Sahildr smacked her chest with gusto while grinning at the smaller boy. Roland just shook his head side to side before grasping it with his hand as he still had a mild headache.

"I’d rather not... l-let...let’s just get this over with...ugh"

"Don’t worry, you’ll sweat it out in no time."

Rebecca smacked Roland’s back while they headed inside the dungeon, the boy almost keeled over from the force behind it. The long corridor was infested with some rats that were quickly dispatched or they just run away. Inside the first level, they followed a route that they had been taking for the past week. It was very rare to encounter more than one monster at a time on this level and the large boar monster was the only type that roamed this jungle forest.

"Mana Arrow."

An arrow of mana flew and collided with the monster boars side. It lodged itself into the flesh and caused the beast to wail in pain. Even though his aim was a bit off, the creature didn’t pose any threat to them and they defeated it in a matter of moments. Feeling good about themselves the group headed down to the second-floor entrance. They were greeted by a large gate and stairs leading down, the stairs were five meters in width and everyone could walk side by side.

"Want to hear something interesting, Roland?"

He just nodded at the redhead leader while they walked down. He was starting to feel slightly better after moving now.

"For some reason, the monsters can’t enter these stairs that separate the levels. If you ever need to run, be sure to head for the stairs and wait for us."

The youth nodded while looking at the corridor. The torches lit up the area to the next level, Roland was wondering if they were magical in nature as he didn’t think anyone replaced them. They didn’t meet any other adventurer party on the way to the second level and it wasn’t any different than the first floor as it was also a forest area.

"This floor is similar to the first, but the probability of more monsters appearing together is higher."

While talking Roland noticed that Reyna raised her hand. The party stopped and pulled out their weapons while waiting. The girl sniffed at the air and then pointed to a nearby tree.

"Two, one there... and one over there..."

She said in a monotone voice while Rebecca nodded. She turned to Roland and while pointing to the left side. He nodded and started chanting his magic bolt spell at the enemy that was on the right. He tried pinpointing the position of the monster as he could see something green and slimy wiggling on the branch he was looking at.

"Mana bolt!"

The ball of condensed mana flew at the enemy and exploded after meeting its target. Roland saw the thing that he was aiming at exploding into chunks. The creature on the left side suffered a similar fate by receiving an arrow to the face. The two monsters slipped from the branches and Roland could finally see what they were.

"Big spikey caterpillars?"

He looked at the corpse while using his identification skill, it gave him the creature’s name that was ’Needle Worm’. The large caterpillar looking monster was filled with spikes and the mouth part had some nice chompers. The blood that these creatures had was apparently green and the smell was also very interesting.

"Good going, those buggers like to hide and then throw themselves at you with their spiky heads. They also smell like Sahildr’s armpits."

Rebecca chuckled while looking at her party member that shook her large fist at her from the side.

"My armpits do not smell!"

She narrowed her eyes at Becky and gave her pits a good whiff. She grimaced and looked back at the red-haired girl that was grinning from the side with an ’I told you so’ look. The girls spread out and went material-gathering as everyone got back to work.

These bugs were apparently, one-trick ponies and could only fling themselves at you headfirst. Roland pointed out that one of them had a mana stone while thinking. This type of monster could prove troublesome if it managed to attack while they were busy with one of those boar types.

’I guess this isn’t a lower floor for nothing.’

He glanced at the bugs again, they weren’t very resilient and could probably be taken out with his short sword. The problem was that they were leaf green and blended with the forest which made them troublesome to spot. He glanced at the wolf girl and realized the importance of someone who could spot the monsters before the battle started. A scout might be even more important in the party than a mage, what good is firepower if you get shanked in the back.

’Eh, this mana stone is tiny.’

Roland thought while looking at the wolf girl pocket the small mana stone into the spatial bag.

The expedition continued, thanks to Reyna that proved to be the MVP of this dungeon run they managed to slay every monster with low to moderate difficulty. If there were too many of those Needle Worms in one spot they would just evade them. The party roamed around the second floor for a while before their spatial bag got filled up with monster materials and herbs. They were standing at the entrance of the 3rd floor the girls wondering if they should proceed.

"Eh, if we had another spatial bag we could visit the next floor but we are already full. Those monster spikes don’t even sell that well."

The large muscular lady pouted while holding her large hammer over her shoulder.

"Hah, you probably just want to test out that hammer of yours on the Wereboars, don’t you?"

Rebecca said while narrowing her eyes at Sahildr.

"New hammer? Wereboars? "

Roland looked at Sahildr’s hammer, he did notice that it was different than the last one but didn’t she already swing it against some of the regular boars.

"Yes, look at this baby, it has runic enchantments! I spent my monthly savings on this!"

The large lady hugged her battle hammer like she would a lover and even gave the square hammer part a large smooch. Roland cringed a bit at the display of affection before asking.

"Oh, It has a runic enchantment? I read that those let you perform some spells."

The girls looked at their young companion, the boy’s eyes looked a bit wider and he looked interested in the weapon as he was inching forward. The large lady didn’t mind and presented the large weapon towards the youth. He noticed that the metallic hammer part did have some strange symbol engraved into it.

"It has a lesser impact rune! I bet I can make a Wereboar’s head explode with it! See, Roland understands how badass this baby is!"

Rebecca rolled her eyes at the display while watching Roland touching the part where the rune was engraved. The boy’s gaze seemed vacant as if he was really enamored with the weapon just like his warrior companion.

This wasn’t the case though. Roland felt like something was drawing him in, his eyes shone momentarily and he could feel a strange attraction to the strange-looking magic symbol. He could see some glowing lines appearing out of nowhere and going in various directions. These glowing lines of light went through the entire rune and they looked familiar. Before he could examine it any further though the wolf girl called out that some monsters appeared.

Roland felt like he was close to discovering something important. This would have to wait though as his life was more important. The monsters that appeared weren’t anything new, just two of the same spiky boar variant.

’I don’t think that meathead will lend me that weapon to investigate... maybe I need to start saving up...’

The battle soon ensued, Rolands mind was preoccupied with the future though. He was close to reaching his cap and then he would need to decide on his next class.