The Stargazing Witch & The Dungeon Planet
Chapter 55: Four Months

Chapter 55: Four Months

In space, things tend to take a long time to happen. I had hoped my road to civilization wouldn’t follow that trend, but that seemed to not be the case as months had passed and I hadn’t found a path home. 

“And that’s that group gone.”

I stood on a small black moon as corpses littered the ground around me while I chewed on a cooked piece of meat from a slain ten-legged reptilian creature. Thankfully with [Fortified Stomach] and my long history of eating monsters, I didn’t have to worry about getting sick or vomiting up my meal.

My mana could sustain me, but food was still food. It provided me with energy that my body could use and store. Beforehand, my mana meant I could go on for months without eating but with the recent improvements in [Primal Guardian Lord] that time had greatly extended to a point where I didn’t know its limits.

Four months had passed since my unwelcome landing through the bastard’s portal, and I was now on the first planet that I encountered that contained life.

“More?” I turned around to see more monsters running towards me.

I had landed on a moon that was the proud owner of two separate dungeons.

A portal dungeon and a large domain dungeon. The latter of which I was currently in, was infested with a wide range of reptilian monsters.

[Solar Blade].

A large blade of sun energy appeared in my hands mid-swing, before being buried deep within the humanoid mutant crocodilian monster.

An immense heat exploded from inside the creature as I pulled the sword out afterwards. The explosion caused the surrounding monsters that had arrived with my newest victim to step back in fear.

But just because they were afraid, that didn’t mean I was going to let them go.

[Solar Blade] wasn’t a skill I used often; I preferred using spears, lances, and my claws/fists for physical combat. Besides that, it was also very difficult to use. Explosions of Sun energy happened whenever something was cut with it. This was troubling to use, as when I first acquired the skill; my body couldn’t handle the constant close-range explosion, but that was long ago and now the explosions were just an annoyance. However, it was still my only proper Sun magic skill weapon construct which was why I was using it. 

Sun was a part of my [Blazing Solar (VI | IV)] skill and it was currently my lowest-tiered elemental skill. So I used this opportunity to further train it.

Once I get my fill, I should leave this moon.

I had only been on this moon for a few hours, and while the experience had been an enjoyable distraction. I knew I must continue my journey soon.

After clearing out the new swarm of pests, I decided to rest and eat some more.

I pushed the hair out of my face, ripping off the strings that were tangled around an unwelcome extrusion in my head.

I wish these things would disappear.

A week into my journey, upon leaving the moon I crashed landed on, I noticed a change in my body.

The two lumps that I thought were just healing slowly, were in fact not injuries but instead a very worrying sign.

A small pale wooden horn grew on the left side of my forehead, and another one had grown above my right ear. Both were tiny, only a few centimetres, but the fact they had even appeared was a cause for concern.

It was clear what they were. They were the budding sprouts of two of the six horns that formed together to make my twisted antlers when I used [Unleashed Awakening].

I did plead to Espr for an answer, which provided no help, as all they said was, ‘(“ Your physical performance and regeneration have improved again, what’s the issue? ”)’.

As well, outside of that talk, Espoiramissa had been incredibly silent for the past few months.

I had no idea what kicked off this sudden quiet streak, and any question I asked was met with silence.

Might as well check out the portal dungeon before I leave.

My decision was made in a vain attempt to hope and find something useful, but considering what was to be expected from a portal dungeon, any luck in finding something partially useful to me was near zero.

The portal wasn’t far from the domain dungeon. The ‘portal’ of a portal dungeon varied in shape and size–from a door to a simple crack. This one was a simple crack with a blue aura field blocking the view of the other side. 

I jumped through the portal and entered a land of purple sky and an orange field of grass.

After emerging from the portal, I came to a quick realisation that this portal dungeon was tiny. I could see the entire domain of the dimension; the whole thing was only about four large sports ovals in diameter.

I expected a hoard of monsters to attack me upon my arrival. 

Creeeaaaa!

Instead, one massive violet bird sat calmly in the fields.

“Now, now, I would be careful who you pick a fight with.”

Corrections, it was sitting calmly.

The bird spread its wings and a violent gust strangled the domain and encased its body as armour.

“Well, I warned you.”

I summoned another [Solar Blade] and thought this would be good practice.

In an outrage of my seeming defiance of it, hundreds of tornadoes formed around the field and charged at me. 

I [Burst] around the field, dodging each one easily.

This angered the beast, which caused it to fly up and charge an attack.

A concentrated force of Wind energy formed in front of its head, it was preparing to shoot me from above.

Continuing to dodge the tornadoes, I waited for the large chicken to hurry up charging.

When finally it was done, a furious beam of stormy wind came crashing down at me.

[Solar Ray].

To counter, I threw a beam of Sun energy right in the bird's beam’s path.

As the two beams collided both simply passed through each other.

Craee?!

The confused creature couldn’t dodge as the beam of light smashed into its face, dealing no damage but temporarily blinding the beast.

That caused the monster to lose me for a moment as I had already dodged its assault.

Within that moment I flew high above it and threw the [Solar Blade] into its back.

Craaaa!

It let out a cry of pain; it spun around trying to hit me.

I raised my leg and [Burst] right into the monster's back bringing us both to the ground.

The bird smashed into the fields causing grass to fly into the air.

I got up and jumped to the front of the creature. It tried to stand back up, but I grabbed and peeled the beak upwards and stabbed directly into its mouth.

[Solar Blade]-[Solar Overload]

The [Solar Blade] shone many times brighter as it became overloaded with sun energy. 

I jumped back as the monster's mouth burned, then a second later–

Boom!

–The monster’s life was extinguished.

“That was good practice.”

I scavenged the corpse for some pieces of meat. Different monsters had different-tasting meat. All were disgusting for human consumption, but experiencing the different tastes was worth it. Mixing enough of them made them palatable, but that could easily just be a mental mind trick.

Once that was done, I walked up to the small dungeon core at the back of the domain. A small blue diamond about the size of a roast chicken; unprotected in case of intruders just sat floating in the farthest reaches of the dungeon.

(“ Will you shatter the dungeon’s core? ”)

Espoiramissa spoke again, I didn’t bother questioning it as I knew I wouldn’t get a satisfying answer. 

No need to.

Destroying the core of a portal or domain would cause the dungeon to disappear completely. However, unless it was a Dungeon Planet, or just a dungeon occupying a planet or moon where people lived, there was no reason to destroy a core.

Even if monsters did break out of it there was no one around for them to hurt.

Portal dungeon cores were in a way, the most dangerous ones to break. As there was a limited amount of time after breaking one to make it out.

I stared at the core for a few moments, admiring its shine. For all the troubles and fortunes dungeons bring, their cores were one of the most beautiful objects I had ever seen.

A crystal of extremely pure dense mana, so pure and dense that no one could do anything with them. There were many attempts to control them, but all were thwarted by the simple nature of the core.

I wanted to touch it, but I was honestly scared I might break it.

Finally, I turned around and left. 

“Next stop, somewhere…” 

I prayed the next stop wouldn’t take another four months to reach.