The Forgotten Godking

With a bit of focus, Rhea suddenly felt like an explosion had gone off in her head, followed by rows of system notifications.

But her attention was fixed wholly on the colourful strands dancing around her in joy.

The mana strands were actively approaching her on their own without her having to do anything.

Moving her hands through the air, she tried touching them, only for those strands to give way to her movement just like the air.

Her amethyst eyes filled with wonder, she kept up the act for sometime before eventually giving up.

With glowing eyes, she turned towards the only person available here to express her excitement.

Though when she saw him, Rhea almost got blinded by the ridiculous sight in front of her.

Galen was practically glowing because of all those mana strands desperately clinging to him like jealous girlfriends.

The difference was easily more than a hundred times compared to the strands surrounding her.

Yet, as she observed closer, even the strands of mana nearby only seem to settle for her as it seems there was no more space to occupy over Galen's body.

=__=

"Haaa...~"

"The world really isn't fair.~"

Rhea muttered under her breath and finally stood up.

Dusting her clothes off, she asked Galen with a slightly irritated expression.

"Now what?~"

"...First of all, Good job sensing the atmospheric mana." Galen replied after a brief delay.

Watching her getting the hang of it on her first try, even he was somewhat amazed.

It might not seem much initially until you consider the fact that he is actually a reincarnated Godking, who had seen pretty much everything in the millions of years he had lived.

' I'd already suspected that she had talent for this. But I didn't think it would be this pronounced. '

' Well, no matter. It'll only make things easier going forward.'

Sorting out his thoughts, he spoke again.

"For the next part, you are going to track the movements of mana strands in your immediate vicinity. Only this time, instead of remaining stationary, you are going to do it while constantly on the move."

"Ugh... That seems hard.~"

"It is. Now let's go and explore this dungeon, so that you can learn about it firsthand."

"Okay.~"

Keeping track on the mana strands encircling her, Rhea took a tentative step forward.

Yet that slight movement was enough to disrupt her delicate concentration and she lost sight of those strands.

'...@#&#$&'

A very unladylike curse almost escaped her lips at that moment.

Stopping for a second,

She closed her eyes.

Took a deep breath and exhaled.

Repeated the process a few more times to chare away the lingering frustrations.

Gritted her teeth and started moving forward.

Instead of keeping track of all of the strands at once, she fixed all of her senses on a single strand first.

As she began her slow walk, almost to the point of crawling, she succeeded in keeping track of its movement.

Inwardly jumping in joy, Rhea continued the same process for a few more steps before adding one more strand to her focus.

' Hmm...? She already figured it out, huh... As expected of my wife.'

Galen thought to himself with pride monitoring her every actions.

By the time both of them left the corridor and entered a hall like space, supported on both sides by two towering pillars, Rhea had managed to improve even more and became capable of maintaining watch on more than ten strands at the same time.

Just as she was about to continue...

*SCREEEECCH*

A high-pitched sound, grating against her ears in the most irritating way, echoed across the open space, and disrupted her rhythm entirely.

Feeling her control slipping, she desperately tried to retain it to no avail.

With blinding fury, she snapped her head in the direction the sound came from, to check the culprit that dared to do this.

There, in the middle of the vast hall, a humanoid creature, barely a meter tall in height stood while holding a broken dagger in its hands.

It's face, with bulging eyes, crooked nose, and a foul smelling mouth full of broken teeth, was the ugliest thing Rhea had seen in her entire life.

A dirty loincloth, barely covering the gremlin's privates, was the only clothing it had on its body.

A red system prompt appeared above the creature's head, marking its identity and level for the explorers,

[ Goblin underling – Lvl 1 ]

which Rhea totally ignored.

The moment she identified the culprit, she vanished from her spot, appearing in front of the unaware goblin with her right leg swinging upward in a diagonal arc.

*SCREE—*

Thinking that the two beings in front of it were ignoring its presence, the monster was about to let out another screech even more loudly than before, only to be cut short when Rhea's boots crashed on its skull with a brutal kick.

*BURST*

In the next moment, the goblin's skull burst apart like a broken bubble, its green blood, brain tissues and broked skull fragments getting flinged across the room and painting the opposite stone wall in a gruesome display.

Its headless body stood perfectly still, not even registering the fact that it had already died, while putrid blood gushed like a fountain from the crushed neck.

Just as the blood was about to drench her completely, Galen intervened and shilded her by manipulating the mana and creating an energy barrier.

[ You have killed a level 1 goblin underling. ]

[ You have recieved 1 exp. ]

The system notification mentioning the abysmal amount of exp she had received, hadn't fazed her even in the slightest.

She just felt really refreshed after getting rid of that pest.

When she finally lowered her leg from her stance, the goblin's body twitched once... then twice... before finally falling back on the ground covered in its own blood with a wet thud.

That's how the first ever dungeon monster, conjured by the world itself, died without even participating in a proper battle – simply because it screamed at the wrong person, at the wrong time.