A Dungeon’s Survival

Flur

It was in moments like these, where I was closest to death, that I felt most alive. It'd been that way for as long as I could remember: adapt or die, a lesson I'd learned at a young age, back when the world I'd known had been ripped apart, and a single misstep would have meant my untimely end. Unlike back then, however, I was done running.

It was why I always sought out new challenges and pushed myself to my limits. Life was fraught with danger. A person could run from it as much as they wanted to, but it always seemed to find a way to catch back up with them in the end. It was only through proactively seeking out that danger and overcoming it that a person could be prepared for the next bout of trouble that inevitably found its way to them. Everyone had limits, though, and there were challenges that couldn't be overcome as people were. Only by breaking through their limits ahead of time could disasters be averted. That was a lesson I'd learned the hard way.

Those were the reasons behind my actions but not my current thoughts. As it stood, my mind was empty of anything that wasn't immediately helpful or that could slow me down, such as how, if Randy was still alive, I'd certainly have a scolding coming my way for my rash actions or how I probably still did from Lance. None of that mattered, though, and what they didn't understand was that, if you didn't go into a fight resolved to die should you make a single mistake, it was impossible to fight at your fullest. It was only when you gave in to the flow state of your carefully honed instincts and reflexes that the seemingly impossible could be achieved.

Fear held a person back. Be it another survivor from my village who'd fallen because of it when they otherwise could have survived or fledgling adventurers who'd frozen up at decisive moments, I'd seen it happen firsthand far too many times. It was okay to feel fear, but to act on it almost always spelled out disaster. It was why I loved the rush of adrenaline as much as I did. It helped to push those feelings away and made losing yourself in the back-and-forth rhythm of a battle far easier, much like I was relying on it for right now.

The fight itself was blur. I was trusting the others to handle the Trenti and draco, so I payed no attention to either. I had to be quick, however, since I knew Autumn and Lawrence couldn't keep the tiny reptile off my back for long. With that motivation fueling me, I acted with decisive precision. Memories replayed in my mind alongside my every move as I drew on what I'd learned from all of the brushes with death I'd experienced in my life.

I rolled to keep low, staying outside of the Shadow Vipers' line of sight. That allowed me to maintain the unpredictability of my movements. As I did so, somewhere in the back of my mind, the near-death experience that taught me the value of staying unseen surfaced. There, I hid behind a rock, motionless and petrified in fear. I knew that if the behemoth monster haunting this section of the Great Caverns detected me, I'd be dead sooner than I could process what had happened.

From that position, I leaped over the shadowy fire, blades poised to strike. At the same time, I also dropped from a ledge, weapon in hand. It was the power of a surprise attack. Back then, I knew that if I didn't kill the monster below me in one go, I wasn't going to get a second chance. Then, I activated Blurring Step as my foot touched the ground, forcing myself out of the path of the dark flames that were blasting toward me with not even a second to spare. Simultaneously, I hurled myself off of a cliff, praying I'd survive the fall because I knew that I wouldn't survive what I was fleeing from.

Footing stabilized, I raced toward the open jaws of the snake. I dove toward a crack in a wall, the giant spider pursuing me too large to follow me through. I ripped my blade through the scales of the awakened monster. I drove the broken sword through the neck of the bandit, eyes refusing to land on my dying friend beside me. I positioned my shoulder in the perfect way to intercept the teeth aiming for my head. I allowed the sword to piece my stomach just so I could get closer to the piece of shit who'd killed everyone I'd ever cared about. I ignored the messages from the System that seemed to overlap with the echos of memories that'd haunted my dreams for over a decade now.

[Shadow Viper, Vie, (Level 18) slain! You have gained 19,500 experience.]

[You have gained a level!]

[Error, no class detected. Experience could not be added. Please select a class.]

[Error, you are not eligible for a class! You must be at least sixteen years of age to select a class.]

[The experience has been lost.]

More than the rush the increase to my stats brought with it, the pain from the venom once again demanded my full attention. I'd taken down half of the monster, but the remaining half was easily within range to kill me if I didn't play my cards right. All it would've taken was a more accurate bite, one that I wasn't about to let it land.

“Ha, no, I don't think so,” I muttered as I dropped one of my two remaining blades and wrapped my arm around its neck.

By the second, more and more venom was being injected into me, but it wasn't going to kill me instantly, not like it fangs could. Unlike brute force, poisons and venoms needed time to work, even if it wasn't much. That was something I was using to my advantage as I pinned its head to my shoulder, leaving it right where I wanted it.

“Not this time,” I whispered as I jabbed my remaining dagger up into its throat, but it wasn't flesh that my weapon plunged into; it was something far worse.

It burned. My hand burned. My arm and body that had been wrapped around the beast burned. Everything burned as the snake vanished into a streak of dark fire to escape my grasp, and that was enough to push me to my absolute limit. I collapsed on the spot, unable to make any more sense of the world around me.

There was a voice, or at least, I thought there was. Maybe it was Lawrence's, but I couldn't say for sure, not in that state. Not even the blinding flash of light that consumed my vision was enough to faze me. I was barely coherent enough to feel the pain flooding through my body begin to abate, let alone understand the reason behind it. Was I being healed or just dying? I couldn't tell.

In that hazy state of mind, I continued to shudder on the ground as a hand shoved something into my face. Then, the feeling of a thick fluid flowing down my throat hit me. It could have been a health potion as easily as it could've been my own blood. As I was, I couldn't differentiate between the two.

Then, an explosion sounded a short distance away, one that would have gone completely unnoticed to me if it hadn't been for the other thing that'd punctuated it. Thanks to that, I began to choke on whatever it was flowing down my throat, a half-crazed laugh forcibly passing through my lips as a singular thing that I could comprehend shoved its way into the center of my blurred vision.

[Shadow Viper, Pee, (Level 18) slain! You have gained 11,375 experience.]

I'd done it. The thing was dead, and I, at least for the moment, wasn't. I couldn't help but to laugh.

“Come on, get it together!” a distant sounding voice demanded, “And stop laughing! You're already a stone's throw away from death; you don't need to be choking on a healing potion of all things.”

So, it is a healing potion, I thought, I'm probably going to survive this, huh? Well, unless the draco and Trenti kill everyone else, of course, but I'm sure they've got this. Ha! Oh wait, Lance is never going to let me live this down, is he? Maybe it would be best if I died here, after all.

I drank in the peaceful silence of the room for a moment, any sound present unable to reach me.

Nah, if I were the type of person to give up because of something as meaningless at that, I'd never have lived long enough to get my class.

More memories came to mind in my delirious state, but I didn't push those ones away. I usually tried not to think about them, the mental pain far worse than anything physical I could sustain, but just this once, I made an exception. In a way, it was my responsibility to carry on their memories. For that reason, I soaked up every last detail of the faces it had been so long since I'd last seen.

* * *

Connie

[Vie (Level 18) was slain! 6,434 experience gained.]

[Pee (Level 18) was slain! 6,238 experience gained.]

I could only stare at the exorbitant amount of experience.

What?

Back when Pee had fallen to the Berserker, I hadn't even gotten five hundred experience from her death. I knew they'd gotten stronger since then, and monsters dying to weaker adventurers seemed to award more experience, but even so, the difference was so staggering that I couldn't make sense of it. Twelve thousand six hundred seventy-two experience in total, that was roughly half of what my Dungeon generated in a week, and I'd gotten it in one go. If that was possible, I couldn't help but to wonder if I'd been completely mismanaging my Dungeon up until this point.

No.

I shook away the thought as soon as it came, not willing to even humor it. The memory of the scouting group killing my precious, scaly girls on a daily basis alone was enough to fill me with an unpleasant mixture of anger and sadness. I didn't want them to have to go back to that. Even if I knew deep down that they'd jump at the opportunity to if only I asked it of them or, worse, volunteer to if they knew the extent it would benefit me, I didn't want that.

Nope, not thinking about it.

I knew there was a conversation that needed to be had there, but I was going to procrastinate on it for as long as I could, preferably longer than the eighteen hours the pair were going to be gone for. Besides, I had other matters that needed my attention anyway, so I had an excuse. Taking advantage of that, I tried my best to forget about the exorbitant amount of experience and turned my focus to other things.

Adraugon retreat.

One such matter was wrapping up the battle. Between the Trenti I'd made for Archie and the notably cheaper cost of resummoning Vie and Pee, I'd already used up more mana than I had to spare for the day. The total cost wasn't too far above my reserves, and I almost certainly could've kept it under that amount by reabsorbing the bodies, but considering this particular group's tendencies to collect those, I somehow doubted I'd get the chance to do that. I figured I'd still be able to finish up the day of delves, albeit barely, but with that being the case, I didn't want to have to resummon the miniature dragon too, not if I could help it.

“Stupid lifespring stone,” Adraugon's response tore me from the numbers I was running in my head a moment later, “Already left.”

What?

Apparently, I really had been distracted. I wasn't sure when it'd happened, but he had left room before I told him to, and currently, he was angrily lapping up a health potion Archie had set out for him.

Um, right, I managed before the final signal that the fight was over came.

[Your Trenti (Level 24) was slain! 584 experience gained.]

That was a disappointingly low amount of experience for a monster that cost so much to make. Forget being less than Vie and Pee's deaths provided, it was considerably less than even the Bloodthorn Vines that served as my boss, not that that was too surprising considering how many resources I invested into them every day. Still, I couldn't complain too much. We had learned a lot from its deployment, after all, and costs versus benefits aside, I had to be ready in case the group still somehow didn't get the message and tried something, not that I thought they would be capable of much in their current state.

While I knew Flur was still alive due to the lack of a death message, she wasn't even standing at this point. Lance and Dan were bloody messes, but somehow, they were not only still on their feet; they were celebrating. I doubted they would've been if they weren't still blinded and could see the condition their friend was in, but Spore Wave lasted quite a while, and they were left unaware. As for Autumn and Lawrence, the archer was frantically scanning the room for a tiny dragon that was no longer present, her last arrow nocked, and the alchemist was doing his best to stabilize his leader.

“Ahem, I believe that is my cue,” Archie said as he stepped toward the shaft that separated the adventurers from us before shouting, “Well done! Truly, all of you fought well, impressively so.”

As his voice rang out and reached down to the scouting group, the mood instantly shifted from skeptical triumph to uncertain fear. Autumn spun around on the spot, looking for a target to aim at, and the two melee fighters on the other side of the room had their revelry cut short. Silence fell for a moment before Lance yelled out in response.

“A Trenti, level twenty-four. That wasn't you that we killed! Where are you!?”

“Ho, so you figured it out, did you? Why, I am right where I've been this entire time, of course. I was merely acting through that puppet you fought so hard against. I am a magic user, not a brute, you see. It was merely a useful tool I had fight in my place, and you lot overcame it. Well done. Now, are you sure you wouldn't like to make one last deal, Swordsman Lance?”

Below, the human gritted his teeth. Realizing there would be no answer from him, Archie continued.

“You see, I would rather not fight you directly, but I have more puppets, much like the one you just faced, and I am not beyond engaging in battle myself.”

He paused after those words left his mouth. Then, under his breath, the Trenti alchemist muttered, “Ah, a level of Bluffing. What a pleasant surprise.”

“What do you want?” Lance called back, “Are you still after those recipes?”

“Ah, no,” Archie continued, “Well, yes, I do still desire them, but I highly doubt you would provide them, even at the cost of your own lives. No, I bring you a different offer. Your group may leave here alive on three conditions. First, you are to leave the spiked club behind. I do not currently have a replacement for it, and it is quite useful.”

Silence met his words, so he continued, “Secondly, you are to give up on reaching this floor. A new path will open down there once the Dungeon is ready to expand. Consider this a side tunnel. You have no business here.”

“How could you possibly know that?”

“I have my methods.”

There was another brief pause. Then, Lance asked, “What else do you want?”

“Bitterwart, Migraine Fungus, Decaying Water Moss, Mandrake corpses, and Bewitching Petunias, twenty samples of each for my research.”

At his words, Lawrence's eyes widened, and he began to make retching sounds.

“Lawrence, are you okay!?” Lance called out, clearly mistaking his reaction for him being in bad shape.

“Yeah, I'm fine. It's just …”

“Just what?”

“Those are some expensive ingredients.”

Matters of money aside, with Flur in the state she was in and with Lawrence as the only one among them still fit for battle, the group couldn't possibly refuse the offer, something the swordsman soon realized when Archie used his power to extract the spores from his eyes. Whether or not they planned to follow through with the agreement was another matter entirely, but thanks to Archie, a tentative, lucrative deal was struck. I couldn't have been more proud.