The Stargazing Witch & The Dungeon Planet
Side Chapter Espoiramissa 1: Moments Before Contact

Side Chapter Espoiramissa 1: Moments Before Contact

Counting the time since the individual named Ceella Stella landed upon Espoiramissa’s surface. It had been four full years and now it was halfway through the fifth.

(“ It’s been fun, but it’s time for a change ”)

Espoiramissa watched every step of the journey.

Ceella had grown a lot during this time. Starting from zero again, only to grow stronger than she ever was before. 

From the times where every day was a desperate challenge to survive. Vomiting the food her body couldn’t properly consume, hiding away from the carnivorous hunters, and running away from the lucky monster that found a new snack.

Now today, she was over level 250. An accomplishment that would’ve been impossible for the majority of humans. She mastered the efficient use of her own mana without external guidance, just like the heroes from the past, those heroes that Espoiramissa wished landed on its surface all those years ago for one true battle for its history.

However, Espoiramissa wasn’t looking for a conflict when it came to Ceella. No, it cared for Ceella even if it only helped her once

But certain things had changed. Ceella was reaching limits and Espr was growing greedy.

For the individual who was cheering for Ceella’s growth the most, Espr had been disappointed a number of times. Choices regarding skills and training could be better in Espr’s mind, but overall it was an exciting show to watch.

However, the current issue was that Ceella had been reaching her limits. Espoiramissa knew this was common for humans but in Ceella’s case, she wasn’t reaching a limit because of a lack of talent or hard work. The issue was a lack of drive.

In a way that made Espoiramissa proud and depressed, Ceella had made herself a part of the ecosystem. She was reborn here. She truly belonged on the planet! But the gap between her and the next bracket of monsters above was so wide that training to beat them would take years.

Maybe she would regain the motivation to grow after a few years, but that wasn’t interesting and there was another method that would also grant something else Espoiramissa wanted.

Espoiramissa knew what Ceella wanted, and in a way, Espoiramissa had the solution.

(“ Keep it up, you are nearly there ”)

Currently, Ceella was in a fight right now, deep within an underground cave.

Espoiramissa could hear Ceella cursing under her breath. She never wanted to be in this location, but she needed to go through her to reach her destination. So she was forced to travel through the underground cave system. These caves were massive ecosystems in their own right and they were not always friendly to intruders. 

Normally Ceella would’ve passed through a different territory, but Espoiramissa had a monster move into there which Ceella saw and couldn’t risk fighting against. 

Espoiramissa could command the monsters on the planet to an extent and speak with them. However, Espoiramissa couldn’t communicate with Ceella in any easy way.

So the only easy way to communicate was to bring Ceella to a place where one of Espoiramissa's many mana cores were–which there were thousands but they tended to be underground or in a hard to reach area. Or have Ceella gain an item that Espoiramissa placed a piece of itself in. 

Espoiramissa decided to go with the former, as the latter had the chance of Ceella just throwing away the item. Which Espoiramissa felt she would do if it seemed unsafe. The mana cores were nothing special, just something Espoiramissa had grown to accelerate the growth rate of the less populated areas and could be used in some other way in case of an emergency.

This limited method of communication only now annoyed Espoiramissa. As before it didn’t need to worry about lacking communication methods cause it didn’t need to talk to humans. Espoiramissa wasn’t angry about this issue though, it just saw it as part of the nature of its existence.

Some of the other Dungeon Planets had created ways to communicate with the Awakened, but those methods would take too long to implement for Espoiramissa's immediate need.

Espoiramissa continued to watch as Ceella danced about the cave.

Ceella jumped around the cave [Burst] away with fire out her feat.

There was a single creature that was chasing her that looked like a four-armed mole minotaur monster.

The clothes Ceella wore were a combination of hides and stitched-together space uniforms.

Fire arrows were fired constantly aimed at every part of the monster’s body. With enough hits, Ceella was examining what part had the weakest resistance to her attacks.

 (“ Using the classics? Fair enough, just be careful, your mana supply is running low ”)

Once again Espoiramissa was enjoying the show that was Ceella’s life.

Depending on how a fight started and continued, the show that was created varied greatly. From close-quarters brawls where one wrong move would claim Ceella’s life, to long-range scuffles where each side didn’t know the exact location of the other party. 

Espoiramissa had seen them all now but they were all still fun to watch.

The fight only lasted for another two minutes. The monster was extremely tough and fast which made it hard for Ceella to find a killing blow getting attacked in the process. It was also hard for her to escape as the monster could manipulate the earth and block her path multiple times.

However, with a well-placed arrow of starlight down the beast’s neck halting the monster’s movement, she launched a series of attacks immediately afterwards to vanquish the monster.

The monster was killed, however, the mole minotaur had moved Ceella right where Espoiramissa wanted her.

Everything was in place. 

(“ Now come Ceella ”)

The floor collapsed and Espoiramissa put pressure on Ceella so that she would fall and the ground shook along with it.

“Argh! Dammit!” 

Ceella didn’t give up, even though there was pressure pulling her down. Her [Burst] and flight alternatives weren’t working so she created gauntlets around her hands of starlight and dug into the wall to hold on while the earthquake happened.

(“ …Yep should’ve expected her to be persistent. Well, she is closer enough for me to knock her out for a moment at least ”)

Espoiramissa fired another wave of pressure from the nearby mana core. Which did the job and caused Ceella to be knocked out and fall down the hole.

Ceella however, quickly awakened deeper in the dark underground cave, “Ah fuck, where am I now?”

She felt nothing around her, but she still hated being here underground, she despised not being able to see the sky and stars.

(“ Well, welcome Ceella Stella ”)

Ceella spun around, and stretched out her soul pressure, to figure out where the voice was coming from, but she couldn’t find anything.

(“ I’m Espoiramissa ”)