A Dungeon’s Survival

Cudgel

“Would you knock it off!?” I yelled at the idiot, but my words fell on deaf ears.

“Just. Die. Already!” he yelled out at the top of his lungs as he continued casting spells left and right.

It was always the ones with a bloated sense of self-worth that took hits to their pride the hardest. I could appreciate giving a fight one's all, but this wasn't that. This was insanity. Ivan was barely even aiming, and it showed.

The snake was slipping past his attacks with ease. Had the man any sense, he would've stopped to look for weaknesses instead of wasting all of his resources on a barrage that clearly wasn't working. That was the problem with his ilk, though. Nobles who were guarded and only ever fought under the supervision of servants more powerful than themselves never developed any real battle instincts. Worse, their unearned and unmastered power had a way of going straight to their heads, something that resulted in frankly embarrassing scenes like this.

“Woah! What do you think your doing?” I tried to ask as I took a measured step back and began raising my shield.

The man had snapped. That was the only explanation for what I was witnessing. I'd never seen him use anything more than a casual spell before, but I knew what serious magic looked like, and the intense chill that began emanating from him before his spell was even fully formed was just that.

He was casting artillery magic; I'd have bet my life on it. That was the kind of stuff mages dumped the bulk of their mana into in the middle of war zones to rain down chaos on large groups, not the kind of thing someone carelessly loosed in a confined space like this. Using it here was beyond foolish.

Seeing that, adrenaline flooded my body, and my carefully honed instincts took over. I had two options. On one hand, I could try to interrupt his spell. That, however, ran the risk of causing whatever insanity he was trying to call forth to misfire, and while a failed cast was rarely as dangerous as a completed spell, at least for the intended target, it was far more dangerous to the caster themselves and anyone who just so happened to be standing next to them. That wasn't something I wanted to mess around with.

I was resilient, but even if Enduring Spirit let me use some of my END to resist magic, it still had a way of hitting far harder than any physical weapon wielded by someone of a comparable level ever could. Generally, it was just harder to defend against, and moreover, my Enduring Body only helped me to block physical damage, which ice magic only partially utilized. I could handle getting crushed with miniature glaciers and with stabbed with icicles just fine, but the element still had a mystical aspect to it that I was far less well-guarded against.

As far as I was concerned, interrupting his cast was out of the question. There was too much risk involved, and I didn't want to be anywhere near that much loose raw power given rein to run amok, which left me with the second option. I fell back.

One step. Two. I didn't take my eyes off the mad mage as I moved, and that proved to be the right choice. As I took another step, the snake moved toward me. Ivan, completely devoid of his senses, didn't pay my presence any mind. He turned and fired his spell straight toward me.

Agility was a weak point of mine. Despite being level thirty-eight and focusing almost entirely on my physical stats, I'd never invested a free point into it. I'd only ever relied on the one point per level I got back as a Warrior, something I'd stopped benefiting from once I advanced to a Tribal Champion. I met attacks head on; I didn't avoid them.

That was well and good under normal circumstances, but here, it meant I wasn't able to get particularly far from the blast of magic before it impacted the wall directly behind me and detonated. I did, however, manage to put one of the room's thinner walls that didn't go up all the way between me and it. I also managed to raise my shield in time. Neither countermeasure made a noticeable difference. Fortunately, the same couldn't be said for Anchored Guard; though, it did only dampened the impact that followed, not negate it.

I didn't see much of what happened next through the blinding flash of frosty blue, but what I could perceive was the pain and numbing cold that found its way into every inch of my body. The wall I'd sheltered behind gave way to the blast, and it, along with what I assumed to be chunks of ice, bombarded me from the front and side.

Even as my abilities reduced the impact of physical force against me, I tumbled backward and crashed into a wall. It cratered under my weight, and I felt my bones crack. That wasn't too bad. What was was the all-devouring frost that accompanied it. It crept up my body, stealing my sense of touch as it did, and it seeped its way deep into my core.

I wasn't sure how long it lasted. It could've been a minute as easily as it could've only been a second. The sensory deprivation made it hard to tell, but once I was certain the brunt of it was over, I began to assess my the damages.

I couldn't move, and my eyes were sealed shut. There seemed to be a layer of ice encompassing me, head to toe. It was hard to tell with how numb my body was, but I was pretty sure my arm was bent in a way it shouldn't have been. Overall, I felt like death.

Warrior's Might.

I didn't waste time. I couldn't afford to. The ice was blocking my ability to breathe. I immediately understood that the longer I wasted, the worse my situation would get, so I moved.

The first thing I needed to do was free myself. The ice was hard, unnaturally so. I could likely shatter it with ease under normal circumstances, but I wasn't under normal circumstances. Encased in the stuff, battered, and broken, relying on my strength stat alone wasn't guaranteed to get me anywhere, and I didn't have time for risks.

Instead, I burned my temporary ten percent stat buff. I also paid the price in my remaining health to activate Overexertion, enhancing my STR by another fifteen percent. With all of that, the ice cracked as I pressed my body against it with everything I had, and once I'd shattered it, I forced my way up through the rubble that'd buried me. Once free, I willed the System to show my health in my mind's eye.

[Health: 147 / 575 (630)]

No wonder that hurt so much, I noted.

Pain Resistance, the first ability a Warrior got, did wonders for letting a man keep going long after his body should've given already out. It had its limits, though.

That dumbass almost killed me! I seethed.

My body may have been intact, at least partially, but I doubted as much could be said for my equipment, not that I could see to tell. My eyes still weren't opening, but I was beginning to doubt that was due to all the ice. The pain overpowering the numbness suggested otherwise, and a moment later, I used my unbroken left hand to confirm it. As it reached my helm, the difficulty pulling it free was all I needed to understand what'd happened. Slowly, I began to pry the jagged broken hunk of metal free from my eye sockets.

“Ugh,” I breathed out a long sigh once I got it free.

This was going to cost me greatly. I could kiss most my ability's charge goodbye for the next month, and that wasn't even taking replacing my equipment into account. That man was going to pay for this once all of this was over. I'd see to that one way or another, but first, I needed to pull myself back together.

Restorative Body.

* * *

Vie

“Wow. You did it!” Pee cheered enthusiastically as we re-emerged from the ground, “Ugh, it's so cold, though!”

That it was. I'd never felt such freezing temperatures before. Even the ground underneath us was frozen. Everything was. A thick coat of ice covered half the room, from the massive, shattered cave walls to the the ceiling above. It was miserable.

Did it work?

I hastily pushed the thoughts of our home's new climate aside as I turned to take in the sight. The mage was laughing. He thought he'd won, and after seeing the aftermath of his spell, I couldn't blame him, though the lack of a kill notification should've tipped him off. Regardless, if we'd tried to dodge that with a mere Shadow Surge, we'd have died for sure. There was question about it.

Then, there was the giant or, rather, the lack thereof. There was no trace of the man. I could only assume he'd been blasted to bits just like the walls of the Dungeon. From what our queen had told us, it didn't sound like even the bear had been able to so thoroughly devastate her terrain. Obviously, he would've succumbed to such an attack. It was terrifying, but it was also what I'd been after.

We need to move. Now, I told my sister, While he's distracted, we need to finish the mage off!

“Right!” she agreed, voice unsteady.

It was a simple fact. We needed to move. Try as I might, though, I couldn't force our body to. Something was wrong.

“It's–brrr–so cold,” Pee repeated, and I couldn't help but to agree.

It was freezing, and the cold was sapping me. I could feel my perception of the world slowing down in real time. There was also a drowsiness I'd never felt before setting in.

What's, uh, happening?

“It's like that story from Archie's book,” Pee noted.

What story?

“The one with the great battle against the Colossal Titanoboa. It was weak to ice, and the adventurers immobilized it with frost, remember? Are we–are we weak to ice, too?”

Before I could give that question much thought, the rocks in front of us shifted.

No, that's impossible!

“Huh? We can't be?”

No, not that. Ugh!

I could do nothing but watch as a mangled mess of blood and ice rose from a collapsed wall. There was no way someone in that condition should've been alive, let alone able to move around and even stand, yet I watched the giant reach up and pry what must've once been his helmet from his head. He stood there for a moment, motionless. Then, he chucked the lump of red ice to the ground in a fit of rage and began twitching uncontrollably.

“Um, what's up with him?” Pee asked.

No, I gasped.

It was subtle at first. His arm snapped back into position, and he began standing more upright. It got more extreme quickly, however.

Next, pieces of ice and metal began shooting free from him. It was as if they were being forcibly launched away somehow. It didn't take me long to realize that the places they were falling free from corresponded with where he'd appeared the most injured mere moments before. I also noticed how, afterward, those same injuries, while still covered in blood and frost, appeared smooth and intact. His body was expelling the shrapnel and healing itself.

None of that compared to what came next, however. In the holes where his eyes had once sat, something began to slowly take shape. The man was regrowing them.

Pee, I hissed, we need to fall back, now!

“But, how? We can't move!”

You still have mana! Just under us and a bit to the right, there should be one of tunnels running underneath this room. Phase us to it!

“O–okay,” she stammered, but to her credit, she swiftly pulled us into the ground, and a few seconds later, we were flopping our way into safety of a side tunnel.

“What now?” she asked after a brief moment.

I don't know, I answered truthfully, my mind struggling to work through the cold, Just, ugh, give me a minute.