<~> Chapter 132[Your party has defeated a Demonioble Dulhan][Novice Magian has increased from level 10 to level 11][Enha magic has increased from level 1 to level 2][Learned Enha Magic Spell Lightfoot]

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

  "I leveled!" Mimi said excitedly.

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

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

  Bel pulled away and ughed. "I'm sure. It be easy tet 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 fusion. "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 mafolk it's hard to keep track of all the different kinds. I've never e across a Mimadora before. Is your kind unon? 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 wao make sure you were okay. Is anyone else hurt? If not, I would like to request some healing from Miss Bel if that's not too much trouble."

  Bel turo me. "Are you okay Lilith? I saw you get thrown across the room."

  "No problem. I might have some bruises but I 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 - Enha Magic Spell]This spell temporarily imbues your surroundings with magic that reduces the weight of anything you target is field. This effect be resisted by Magic Defehe iy of this effect is increased by half of yic Force. This spell reserves a portion of your mana and drains your mana as upkeep as long as it stays in effect. Magitrol reduces the amount of mana required for upkeep and increases the size of the effect's field.

  Oh! This seems useful. I wonder rinciple 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. Enha 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 avaible. This one doesn't seem to nicely fit into any of the other categories I know of though. Either this one is a 'pure' enha spell, or it's mixed with something I don't already have access to, which is iing. Sometimes gaining new magic seems reted to what I'm doing at the time and other times it doesn't. It's a bit insistent and fusing but then again, it is magic. Maybe I'm overthinking it.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  She looked thoughtful for a moment. -- "Maybe, but nht 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 w 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 dulhan. 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 turo dust when we killed them too though.

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

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

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

  Torien sched her brows. "But... I didn't think it ossible 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." Man crossed her arms and looked back down at the headless monster we just fought.

  The thought was s but the piebsp;did fit.

  Torien spoke quietly. "That doesn't give us mu to iigate his death then, does it?"

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

  I looked around the space we were in. The guards were chatting aing as Bel 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 magitrol 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 se once. I was also able to use my [Mana Sense] in bination but using the magid skill at the same time was hard to maintain. I focused and looked around, looking for anything out of pce.

  Wait, THERE!

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

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

  Man was instantly intrigued by it. "Fasating! A rge clump of stagnant mana! Most of it has pletely 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."

  Man turo her sister excitedly. "What? You have an idea?"

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

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

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

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

  Man's tail flicked bad forth wildly. "It makes perfect sehough! A new dungeon! We could be the only mortals ever to withis in person! That means this space is like a proto dungeon, ohat hasn't pletely formed yet. Maybe that's why we didn't get any kind of reward for killing the dulhan, or any notification for defeating a dungeoe there being nowhere else to go in here!"

  Captain audibly sighed and rubbed his temples. "If this is actually a duhen we shouldn't interfere with it, right? Does that mean Goldeh is going to have a dungeon sprout up right in the ter of the city? We don't even have trol over the ey agai, how are we supposed to get the resources to deal with this problem too... merts? the king?"

  I looked back up at the knot of mana again. "You're fetting 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 f, it's not a dungeo 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 f."

  Jasper rubbed his fad groaned before looking in the general dire of where the mana was. "Fi 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 bme onto you."

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

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

  "I agree with my sister," Torien said.

  Everyone else in my group nodded along with Torien. Everyone here, myself included, took Man's opinion the most seriously when it came to things like magid 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 ined to agree.

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

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

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

  "Really! I ea—"

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

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

  I turo 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 everyoo leave the room."

  He looked at my group before nodding. "Fi 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 bay party who... also looked ed now.

  Torien turo her sister. "What do you think Mori?"

  She shook her head. "I holy 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."

  Bel looked at the twins and Silva before turning bae. "Okay. Be careful Lilith. Be careful Mimi."

  I watched as everyohe room other than me and Mimi. I turo look at her. "Are you ready?"

  She nodded. Despite the slight worry I could sense from her, I could also feel the inteicipation that came from the prospect of eating the rge 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 rger than the rest of her body so she could close up around the stagnant mana a 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 colpsed around us, shrinking the rge library bato 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.

  Saine

  Hello! Silly Lilith, probably wasn't smart to stand there.

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