Dungeon of Niflheim

‘Damn being an adventurer is much more tedious than it looks.’ Frost suddenly had more respect for the groups he saw enter his dungeon with full backpacks. Adventurers that didn’t know any lifestyle magic needed to carry around food, shelter equipment, water, weapons, and a method to produce fire otherwise they wouldn’t able to survive.

“This is the magic district, you can buy magic devices, scrolls, alchemy materials, artificing materials basically anything related to magic will be in this section.” Leo pointed at some examples for each type. The magic district was considered one of the more expensive areas in the money pit as anything related to magic had an inflated price. For example, Frost could see in a store window a magic device that projects white light called a torch was 20 silvers and the magic crystals weren’t included. All it did was send out light, yet it was 20 silvers.

For more combat related devices, the price seemed to be hiked up to several gold coins even more than the glaive he just bought. Frost promptly ignored such stores since they were out with his budget.

“Frost-senpai you said that you use ice magic, what spells do you know?” As they walked down the street Leo caught a glimpse of a magic scroll shop and remembered in Borris’ weapons shop Frost mentioned that he was an ice magic user.

“I only know one spell, ice bolt” Frost couldn’t help but feel a little shame, he said he was an ice magic user, but he only knew the one spell. He planned to learn some more but he ran out of DP.

“I see, then do you want to try and learn another one?” Leo wasn’t too shocked; it was rare for someone to know weapon arts and magic so the fact that Frost could use only a single spell didn’t really matter.

.....

Leo directed Frost’s attention towards a small store to their right called ‘Abbie’s magic scrolls’. Frost felt his coin purse as he thought. He didn’t know how much magic scrolls cost, but it was probably worth a look.

He nodded towards Leo who led the way.

Ring Ring

The bell above the shop’s entrance rang as they walked in, they didn’t receive any greetings this time. The old lady who owned the store simply gave a quick glance from her desk in acknowledgement before returning to reading her book. They also weren’t the only customers browsing.

The shops interior looked a lot like a bookstore with each bookcase having its own genre or in this case element. Frost could see scrolls on the four basic elements: water, fire, earth, and wind as well as ones pertaining to ice, lightning, and wood albeit a much lower number. The collection was quite impressive for a countryside town.

The shelves were then further divided by the level of magic with the higher ranked spells being higher up.

‘I see that they only have up to the 3rd circle available.’ Magic in Nova was divided up into 8 circles of magic with 8 being the most powerful. Frost’s ice bolt spell was considered a 1st circle spell but can evolve to a higher circle depending on the number and density of the ice bolts summoned.

Curious Frost moved to inspect some of the 2nd circle ice spells.

“Ice blade”

“Ice entanglement”

“Ice shield”

Frost recognised a few of them as they were available in the dungeon menu. He didn’t see much point in buying any of the 2nd circle spells so he moved onto the 3rd circle level scrolls. Well, they only had two and both of them were out of his price range at 5 gold coins each.

Summon ice golem and blizzard were the two scrolls for sale and they came with a short description on how they worked. Summon ice golem was pretty self-explanatory, it summons an E-rank ice golem that follows the summoners commands. Increasing mastery and having large mana pool would allow the user to summon more than one. The blizzard spell described itself as creating a large chunk of ice above the intended target, dropping it on their head and crushing them (think the blizzard spell from final fantasy). Increasing mastery would increase the size, weight, and the form speed of the ice chunk.

The 3rd circle spells looked far more appealing to Frost because like 3 star weapons, any spells stronger than the 2nd circle were currently locked in the dungeon menu.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have enough money, or he would have purchased both of them immediately

Frost sighed as he lamented his lacking funds. He turned his gaze back to a few of the 2nd circle spells, the ice entanglement spell in particular which was 50 silvers. The spell would summon vines of ice under the target, trapping them in place. Increasing mastery would increase the size and strength of the vines as well as their summoning speed.

‘This one would probably work well with my ice bolt spell, it’s a more manageable price as well.’ The only worry Frost had was if he was spending too much, he couldn’t remember the price for these spells in DP, so it’d be a gamble.

“Are you going to buy it?” Leo asked at his side, he watched as Frost shifted between all the ice scrolls on sale. Leo couldn’t use magic, even lifestyle magic was rather difficult for him to use so there was nothing of interest in this store for him. He was more interested in buying interesting magic devices like the torch they saw earlier.

Frost let out another sigh before turning to Leo and replying.

“I think so, I’ve not got enough money for a 3rd circle scroll so this ice entanglement spell will have to do.” Frost picked up the scroll delicately.

Frost took the scroll over to the old woman behind the counter.

“I’d like this scroll please ma’am.” He spoke politely to the woman and fished out a gold coin from his purse.

The old woman looked up from her book with a slight annoyance, she gave Frost a quick once over before taking his gold coin and handing him back 50 silvers.

“If it fails to work there’s no refunds, the issue will be on your end.” The woman arrogantly replied before returning to her book, no longer paying any attention to Frost.

‘Eh won’t work, why wouldn’t it work?’ Frost was a little surprised and wanted the old woman to clarify what she meant but he felt a dangerous vibe from her, pressuring him not to disturb her again. It wasn’t necessarily a vibe of strength but more irritation.

‘If you don’t like dealing with people then don’t open a store.’ Frost’s faced twitched in anger, but he chose not to sink to her level, he turned around and left the store with Leo, with an unhappy expression.

‘I’ll just ask Maya or Luna about it.’ Frost put the magic scroll into one of backpack’s compartments for safety. He didn’t know why it’d possibly fail but Maya definitely would.

The old woman looked up at Frost’s back as he left a little surprised

“Hoh, I thought for sure he’d cause a fuss.” She smiled slightly before returning to her book.

Once they left the magic scroll store, Leo dragged Frost around the many different shops selling magic devices. Frost didn’t buy any since they all seemed useless except for the really expensive ones but Leo bought a bunch. Apparently, it was his hobby, back in the lord’s manor his bedroom as well as several storage rooms were filled with his collection of magic devices like the torch they saw earlier. Frost couldn’t bear to pull Leo away when he saw the sparkle in his eyes, so he just followed along nodding a few times whenever Leo tried to explain how awesome the magic device in his hands was.

‘They’re all nothing but junk though.’ Only magic devices found in monster lairs or ones made by top rank artificers were considered good.

‘I can buy better stuff with a small amount of DP.’ Frost sighed as he watched Leo dash back and forth between devices. He had possibly underestimated the appeal of magic devices or perhaps Leo was just a special case. Frost’s gaze then drifted over similar people who were examining the magic devices for sale, they had the same mad look in their eyes as Leo.

‘Maybe he’s not that unique.’ Frost had to reaffirm the idea of using lures in his dungeon.

‘Perhaps setting up a trap room with a magic device in the centre would work wonders hahaha.’ Frost could picture it now, someone like Leo dashing madly towards the device ignoring the danger.

Of course, not everyone was interested, a few adventurers could be seen inspecting the magic devices and clicking their tongues in disappointment.

A couple hours later after they had left the sixth magic device shop Frost and Leo ran into Maya and Luna. They were all smiles and only held a single small bag each.

‘Thankfully it looks like she didn’t buy too much.’ Frost let out a sigh of relief.

“Did you girls have fun?” He smiled at Maya, before seeing the small bag he feared that they came looking for him and Leo for more spending money.

“Yes, Luna showed me around all the best clothing stores and jewellery stores, we also visited a bakery selling the most delicious cakes.” Maya spoke with excitement as she withdrew a carboard box filled with slices of cake.

“look at this it’s chocolate rum cake, rum!” Maya pushed the cake box towards Frost while emphasising the word ‘rum’. Cake mixed with alcohol could there be anything better.

Luna had gotten a vanilla flavoured sponge and was showing it off to Leo, of course neither of the girls offered the boys a slice, simply rubbing it in their faces, teasing them with the smell.

Pushing away the cake thrusted at his face, Frost spoke.

“Is that all you bought?” The moment the words left his mouth a cold shiver ran down his spine, he just jinxed himself.

“Pssshh no we were shopping for hours, how could we only buy a couple cakes.” Maya shook her head and looked at Frost as if he was an idiot.

“We had the bags sent to the carriage; it’d be impossible to walk around the shops with all those bags after all.” Maya gestured with her hands an example of her attempting to carry dozens of bags.

‘What the hell did she buy?’

“Oh, and I’m out of money.” Maya held out the empty coin purse. She had spent everything Frost had given her, leaving not a single copper. Guardians were forbidden from using their own wealth during their tenure, to save cores taking advantage of their vast wealth reserves. If Maya wasn’t a guardian, given her power as an S-rank monster and her background as a Fenrir she would able to buy the entire money pit block so spending less than 2 gold coins was nothing but chump change for her.

Frost’s lips started to twitch as Maya dangled the empty coin purse in front of him with an innocent look on her face.

‘She’s a damn money succubus.’