A Person with Morals gets Transported to Another World [LitRPG] [Satire]

The three of us stepped down the steps into the dungeon. The stone walls were cracked and crumbling. Torches lit the dungeon at set intervals. When we reached the bottom, we were met with a long tunnel. The air here was stale, insects crawled about, and our footsteps echoed back to us.

“The interior is creepier than I imagined,” said Penrin. Her breath formed an almost imperceptible cloud. “And colder too.”

“You want my fur coat?” I asked.

“I would rather die than wear that thing.”

I didn’t realise that people hated the sight of my costume so much. “Well, time to get down to business.” While walking down the tunnel, I groped the walls and kicked at loose bricks. I peered through cracks where the cement between stone broke off. Everything we passed, I inspected thoroughly.

“I hesitate to ask, but what are you doing, Yarm?” said Newmill. He had a concerned expression.

“I think he’s got some sort of sickness,” said Penrin.

“I’m checking the place for secrets. There might be things hidden in the walls. But maybe that’s too predictable and I should be checking the ceiling. Yeah, I’ll do that too.” I threw the loose rocks on the ground at the ceiling.

Newmill struggled with whether or not to speak but after a few minutes of my actions, he couldn’t hold back any longer. “Yarm, if we keep going at this rate, it’ll be night before we make it ten metres.”

Looking back, I realised that the staircase was still directly behind us. We had made no progress. “I guess this isn’t going to work, is it?” I wasn’t even sure if that method would be able to uncover hidden secrets. I decided to switch to Plan B. From my bag I pulled out the wall compass. “Behold! This points to the nearest wall, so if I stay close to the wall while we walk, when a false wall appears it will change direction.”

Penrin gave me a look of condescension. “If it points to walls, wouldn’t it also point to a fake wall?”

I hadn’t thought of that. “Well, I also have a Plan C!” I pulled out my pocket telescope and then put it back into my pocket to activate it. “Ta-da! With this, I can spot valuable things.”

Newmill said, “That telescope only shows things worth looking at, right? What if it decides that secrets are not worth seeing?”

That was also a problem, but I didn’t really have any other options. I placed the telescope against one eye and focused the other eye on the wall compass. I tried moving down the tunnel, but my first step caused me to trip on a loose stone. “Owie…”

The three of us continued down the dungeon corridor at a regular pace. It was spacious enough to allow us to all move side-by-side comfortably. During our travel, we noticed rooms on the sides that were ransacked. The other dungeoneers had collected everything of value.

Five minutes in, we came upon a four-way intersection in the hallway. An arrow was chalked into the middle to denote the direction of the exit. I surmised that it was easy to get lost in here, so adventurers laid markings to keep their bearings. It drew my mind elsewhere, though. What did my map menu look like underground?

I opened it and saw that it was showing the tunnel we had travelled and the intersection that we were at. It only revealed what we had explored so far. With this, it was impossible for us to get lost. I explained this discovery to Newmill and Penrin, but they weren’t as enthused.

“It’s not any more useful than just putting down markings, is it?” said Penrin.

“I think it’s cool.” Newmill’s tone of voice betrayed that he didn’t think so. “Which way do you think we should go? Left, right, or ahead?”

“Hmm.” There wasn’t a reason for me to pick one over the other, so I just went with my gut. “Let’s go left.” As I stepped down the left corridor, I saw a skeleton standing upright and staring at me. “Never mind. Let’s go down the right corridor.” I turned around and went in the opposite direction of the skeleton.

A few steps down the right corridor, I heard someone moaning in relief. Peering down the hallway, there was a man pissing against one of the walls. The stream was trickling against a stone brick and splashing back onto the trousers around his ankles. “Never mind again. Let’s go down the forward hallway.”

The last hallway’s torches were unlit. I looked into the darkness, and I swore I saw several faces gazing back at me. “Nope. Not here either. Let’s just go home.”

“Yarm, you can’t go into a dungeon when you’re this much of a scaredy cat,” said Newmill.

What he said was true, but I wasn’t expecting any of these horrors to show.

“We should just go and fight the skeleton,” said Penrin.

“Why are you acting like a human skeleton standing upright and staring menacingly is a trivial matter? Any normal person would be scared.” It was completely normal for me to be fearful of such a thing, wasn’t it?

Newmill explained, “The skeleton is an object that the dungeon made or is occupying. It’s not something to fear. The three of us could defeat it easily.”

“I know, how about since you two are so brave, you can go and beat up the skeleton while I watch.”

Penrin sighed. “Yarm, you’ve knocked out opponents far above your weight class before. Why are you cowering from a single skeleton?”

Of all the enemies I had ever encountered, this skeleton was probably the second strongest. The first being the slime. “This skeleton thing has no meridians. All of my attacks are completely useless against it. I can’t defeat it. I’ll provide you support from the back.”

“Oh?” Penrin became intrigued. “You have support skills?”

“Of course,” I said. “I’ll cheer you two on better than anyone else.” I used the beard and scalp from my costume as pompoms and started a chant. “Go! Go! Let’s go! Team Newmill and Penrin!”

“You’re not even considering yourself part of the team?” Penrin shook her head and started walking down the left corridor with Newmill. The prince stood several metres behind Penrin, and I stood several several metres behind Newmill.

When the two approached the skeleton, it picked up a rusty sword from the ground and began attacking. Penrin took a fighting pose and cautiously moved forwards like a seasoned boxer. The skeleton sliced its sword horizontally at the girl’s head. Penrin ducked and landed a counterblow to the skeleton’s ribcage.

The punch was powerful enough to break bone.

The skeleton swung again, but Penrin was able to easily dodge. Newmill was on standby. From his position, he couldn’t cast his fireball spell without hitting Penrin. Plus, it was simply unnecessary.

From deeper in the corridor, more skeletons came with weapons in hand. I counted 4 in total. One had a bow, another an axe, one a spear, and the last a fist. To specify, the last one was holding a skeletal arm with its skeletal arm to use as a bludgeoning weapon.

To encourage my teammates in this dire situation, I cheered harder. “Beat those skeletons!” A flash of genius hit me. “Actually, beat those skele-bums!” I was proud of that one.

Meanwhile, Newmill started casting fireballs at the skeleton reinforcements. He wastefully cast his spell in the general direction of the skeletons. The flames hit the three frontmost enemies. He should have focused his fireballs at a specific enemy, the skeleton archer. The other skeletons were not in range to attack yet, so defeating the opponent with the most range should have been his priority.

Watching him cast his fireball was also vexing. His fireball spell was given to him by the System, and it was so incredibly wasteful. The mana conversion efficiency was so poor it made me angry. It was like using a gallon of petrol to only drive a single mile. So wasteful. Due to what I had learned from the books in the Mages Society, I could tell that the System was amateurish in its execution of fire magic.

With a crushing blow, Penrin destroyed the skull of the skeleton in front of her. Then she readied herself for the three charging at her. Purely off of reflexes she dodged each of the incoming attacks from the skeletons. However, she had to expend all her attention to her defences. She couldn’t fight back.

But she could, I thought. I had assumed that my capacity to predict a person’s attacks was from seeing how their muscles moved, but that wasn’t entirely true. These skeletons had movement patterns that I could recognise. It seemed that I was able to accurately predict even the attacks of creatures without bodies.

Therefore, I could see that there was ample time for Penrin to counterattack. In fact, her dodging was also wasteful. She overmoved in response to attacks. Because she was dodging off of reflexes, she didn’t know where exactly the attacks would go. Because of that, she had to overshoot her dodges.

If I had control over Penrin’s and Newmill’s bodies, I believed that the fight would’ve ended by now. I could explain battle tactics to them, but I couldn’t teach Penrin to predict attacks or teach Newmill to be more efficient. I felt it a shame that both of them were wasting so much potential.

The skeleton archer nocked an arrow and aimed at Newmill. The prince was too distracted by aiming his fireballs at the enemies attacking Penrin.

He thought Penrin was in danger, so he wanted to dispatch the skeletons attacking her. This was another mistake on his part. Penrin was perfectly capable of dodging for hours on end if she needed to. While she absorbed the attention of the melee combatants, Newmill should have focused on the archer.

The skeleton archer fired an arrow at Newmill. I predicted the exact trajectory. It was going to hit Newmill in the head. Having predicted this, I stowed away my pompoms and drew a needle. I stepped in front of Newmill and held the point of the needle in the arrow’s flight path.

The arrow’s tip directly struck the tip of my needle. I saved Newmill’s life.

Upon collision with my needle, the arrow disintegrated. The wood of the shaft splintered into a hundred pieces. The arrowhead split into two. When it fell to the ground, I noticed it was completely blunt and incapable of piercing anything. I didn’t save Newmill’s life; I saved him from a bruise on his forehead.

“Thank you, Yarm!” said Newmill. “You saved my life.”

“Uh, sure.” The praise was undeserved, but I thought that refusing it would be impolite.

Newmill continued shooting fireballs at the melee combatants until two fell, and Penrin finished off the last.

“Great work, everyone.” I brought them close and patted them both on the back. “We defeated those enemies easily.”

“We?” said Penrin.

“Oui oui,” I said. “Now it’s time for me to teach you two some teamwork and battle strategy.”