A three-dimensional map of the dungeon popped up on the holographic screen.
It showed not only the layout of each floor, but also the locations of traps and the quickest route from one floor to the next.
Buying the complete dungeon map got Nickel extra information, as well.
The type of goblins that appeared on each floor, the locations they were most likely to congregate, and a small summary of the bosses on the fourth and eighth floor.
'Money well spent.' Nickel thought.
He'd left home with two hundred gold, now down to one hundred eighty. He'd need to sell at least some of the cores he gathered from the dungeon, both to earn more gold, and to keep up appearances.
He planned to remain in the dungeon until it was time to leave Ashbert. Disappearing for several days only to turn up without any cores to sell would draw attention that he would rather avoid.
Studying the map more closely, Nickel realized he'd probably need to move a little more quickly than he'd planned.
The first floor was populated solely by feral goblins, the kind that wore nothing more than rags and wielded crude, blunted weapons. These, he wasn't worried about.
It was the second floor and onward that was cause for concern.
From there, more intelligent and better equipped goblins began to appear. Nothing too terrible, it was an F-Rank dungeon. The second floor was primarily the feral goblins, but goblin grunts would show up alongside them.
Just from quickly glancing over the rest of the list, Nickel decided he needed to clear the first two floors today.
Part of the reason was that the goblins on the lower floors had cores that converted to more Kalna. But nothing said he couldn't profit while being prepared.
Dismissing the map and slipping his card into his pocket, Nickel approached the catfolk man guarding the dungeon entrance.
"First timer?" the man asked.
"Yes."
"Alright. You seem pretty confident in yourself, but I still need to ask," The Guild staffer paused. "Are you certain you want to enter the dungeon solo? I can help you find a party if necessary."
Nickel shook his head.
The man shrugged. "Well, I tried. Good luck."
Stepping past him, Nickel began descending the spiral stairs set in the center of the room.
He'd been walking down them for about thirty seconds, when he felt himself pass through some sort of spatial barrier.
'That must be the dungeon barrier.' He thought as he stepped out into a small, square room.
There wasn't anything inside it, with only a single exit on the wall opposite him.
Nickel wasted no time, immediately passing through the room and out it's exit.
He came out into a large stone hallway. It gave one the feeling of an ancient ruin. Hearing a commotion to his left, he looked over and saw a group of goblins.
"Oh!," Nickel grinned. "How convenient."
Breaking into a sprint, he was upon the goblins before they could realize what was happening.
Nickel's daggers cut smoothly through them, severing heads and piercing hearts. All the goblins felt was a sense of unease, right before a few short seconds of clinical violence, then nothing.
A quick flick of his daggers cleaned them of blood before Nickel resheathed them.
He quickly extracted the cores from the goblin corpses with practiced motions, leaving the remains to be reabsorbed by the dungeon.
In order to keep the goblins from fleeing in terror, Nickel had suppressed his draconic aura. It would seem he'd need to work on it, since the ones he'd just killed had still ended up frozen due to his presence.
Nickel sighed, and continued deeper into the dungeon to hunt more goblins.
—
A head flew into the air, cleanly cut away from it's former bearer.
The now dead goblin slumped to the ground.
'That's 100 cores total.' Nickel thought.
It'd taken a couple of hours, but he was most of the way through the first floor.
A majority of that time, in fact, almost all of it, was spent trying to find goblins. The issue was that they moved in small groups on this floor, and he wasn't the only one hunting them.
Nickel mostly avoided other adventurers while in the dungeon, mainly because he'd had no reason to interact with them.
At the rate he was hunting, working with others would only slow him down. He was already on track to fully fill his First Circle just by completing this dungeon. Assuming he'd done the math right.
That was miles and miles ahead of the progress the average adventurer could achieve. Hell, it was above what even a major talent could achieve.
Nickel continued on, killing groups of goblins as he found them, when he came across yet another party. They were fighting an unusually large group of goblins.
He made to pass by them like he'd been doing, but as he did, he noticed that Shalen was with them.
Now, he wouldn't claim to care very much about her, but her resemblance to Selika made Nickel pause to observe.
Her party consisted of four members, the recommended size for the dungeon. Shalen was at the rear of the party, casting [Firebolts] at the goblins.
She wasn't doing great, missing more often than she struck.
Standing a little ways to her left was a young human man in cloth armor. He looked to be the party's healer, trying to keep casts of [Low Heal] on the party's two frontliners.
The frontliners in question were two… men?
It was difficult to fully tell, as one of them was covered head to toe in heavy, battered armor, using a shield and a mace to keep the goblins at bay.
The last of the group was another young human, wearing medium armor and wielding a longsword. He seemed the most competent of the group, deftly preventing the goblins from surrounding the tank.
That didn't seem to be enough, though. There was only one truly competent member, and they were facing thirty goblins.