Reborn as a Reluctant Demon Lord

Chapter 15 - Into the Dungeon

Unlike the tutorial dungeon, I can promise that we will not spend 9 chapters in this one.

I can also promise that there will be no ants.

That already makes it 10,000 times better, right? Well, that's what I thought going in too...

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Barely 5 minutes into the dungeon, we ran into a 4-way intersection.

After a bit of deliberation, we decided to stick right. I took the lead and led us down the right branch because I could see best down there. Shouldn't the torchlight kill my [Dark Vision]? Eh, whatever. Video game eyes. Who cares? I focused back on what we were going to be walking into.

We continued cautiously downward on the winding tunnel and didn't come across anything for about a minute. Then the tunnel suddenly opened up into a room.

I took a second to examine it. There were random holes in the floor and also spikes hanging from the ceiling. Those are some decent sized stalagmites. Or are they stalactites? I always forget which is which. Then my gaze was stolen by the form skittering across the room.

I screamed out of reflex and pointed at it. "KILL IT WITH FIRE!" To her credit, Sam tried. She [Quick Casted] a [Fire Bolt] in the general direction that I had pointed, but it turns out that trying to hit a target that you can't see is quite the difficult prospect.

The flame hit harmlessly off to the side of it, and it charged us.

"Titus, what is it?" Jake readied his sword and prepared for anything.

I gave no answer except for my screaming. Which was obviously very manly.

Meanwhile, the terror scritched closer and closer. The party readied up for a fight. "Titus, how close is it?" Jake asked. When he didn't get a response, he pushed a bit past me and readied his sword.

Finally, the horror reached vision range of his torch. Jake looked back and forth between it and me. "Seriously? It's just a spider."

I finally found my voice and stopped screaming... Mostly. "Just a spider!? It's bigger than my fist! And it has red eyes!"

Further discussion was cut off by the spider suddenly leaping at me from about 10 feet away. That prompted yet another very manly scream. Fortunately, Jake intercepted it and brought his sword down on the leaping arachnid. The usual blurring of damage happened everywhere his vertical strike landed, and then I was hit by the spider's corpse. The corpse fell to the ground and then turned into smoke.

I froze up. Jake walked up to me. "Titus, are you okay?" He waved his hand in front of my face. "Placeholder to Titus. Do you read me?"

I grabbed Jake's shoulders with a deadly serious look in my eye. "Have Tim [Fire Ball] the entire room. It's the only way to be sure."

Jake sighed, put his sword away, and removed my hands from his shoulders. "We aren't [Fire Balling] the room willy-nilly just because you're afraid of spiders. They probably even have less HP than the wolves that we fought outside."

Garrett chuckled nervously. "You sure we can't just have him throw one out? You know, soften them up?" Lindsey nodded along with what Garrett was saying.

Jake groaned as he looked between them. "Not you too! We've fought scarier things than spiders. And Titus looks scarier than they do!" He realized what he said. He turned to me and uttered a half-hearted. "No offense." I was still in too much shock for the insult to register.

He paused for a second and then addressed the party. "Basically, what I'm saying is that we can't have anyone freezing up because they're afraid of spiders, so I'm sorry, but you're going to need to get over it. What if the dungeon boss is a giant spider? I can't have anyone being useless in a boss fight, or we'll die." His tone softened a bit. "That being said, we're all here for you guys. We'll help you face your fear and get over it. The next spiders we see, it will be up to you 3 to take them on, okay? We'll be right behind you and ready to help. But don't worry, you guys can do this. We believe in you!"