I Was Reborn as a Daddy in Another World

Descent - Part 3

Val and Katya's journey through the second floor was only marginally more difficult than their trek across the first.

Again, Val was taken aback by the open blue sky, blemished only by what could be described as a hole in the air through which the wide, stone staircase from level one made its way to the surface. Again, the rolling fields of green spread out in all directions, though it was dotted by more and denser groves of tall trees than the floor above.

However, as they entered the second level during the day, Val was able to see wandering creatures, monsters in the common parlance of this world, moving around across the open plain in alone or in small groups. He stopped on the staircase, dizzyingly unsupported by any sort of support beams he could see and lacking in the proper guardrails, and watched the pockets of movement, but was unable to discern anything meaningful from their seemingly random wanderings before Katya hustled him along, calling from below.

In the interest of reaching the third level before nightfall, they avoided any sort of conflict with the monsters themselves, and chose not to wait around for the return of whatever adventurers had left their camp unattended at the base of the staircase. Val had procured maps of almost all the levels down into the two-hundreds, but he did not have the need or chance to pull them from his pack. Katya knew these early levels intimately and led them on an unerring path toward the exit, varying only to avoid scattered tree-men, giant dragonflies and yet another pack of slavering baptet hounds.

Mid-afternoon, they circled wide around a few sets of mismatched, rusted out armour, floating inches above the ground. From a distance, they looked to be warriors wielding ill cared for weaponry, but once they got close enough, Val could see the armour had no inhabitants.

"What are those?" he asked, breaking the silence of the trek for the first time since the staircase.

If he'd been ahead of Katya, instead of trailing behind her, he would have been privy to a legendary eye roll, but since he wasn't she was forced to respond verbally.

"They're called Armour Wraiths," she replied, offering nothing further.

Val nodded to himself.

His research had allowed him to gain some understanding of what enemies lay in wait in the labyrinth, but there was no exhaustive bestiary to be found outside of the annals of the various guilds. Certain information was fiercely guarded, and coveted, by each guild, in order to maintain their advantage when it came to dungeon crawling. Even the maps he'd managed to buy were only made widely available by an ancient royal decree, though they were still prohibitively expensive.

"I haven't heard of those," he said, "But I'm sure you've defeated a bunch of them, they don't look like they could stand up to you for long."

Katya's head snapped around, though she didn't stop walking, and she examined his expression for any sign of facetiousness or sarcasm. However, Val had trained his poker face over many years of extracting information from a child who got herself into all sorts of trouble, and the question he had very deliberately not asked was only reinforced by the blank look of only the vaguest interest he had set his face into.

"Because you're so strong," he finished, his tone as mild as milk.

Katya turned away, allowing herself a small satisfied smirk. Behind her, Val did the same.

"They're weaklings," she started, the smirk carrying through into the tone of her voice, "Supposedly ghosts of dead warriors, but if you died on level two, you can't have been much of a warrior to begin with."

Val said nothing, not wanting to interrupt Katya's flow.

"They're only dangerous to magic users," she continued, "Since they're pretty much immune to spells, but if you can knock enough pieces of the armour off them, they just fade out of existence. Even you should be able to beat one, if it comes to it."