Ch 227 – Beginning the Ascent to the Top of the Mine
Finally managing to pull himself from under the cave-in, along with a couple of hundred pounds of rocks that slipped out with him, Deacon shakily got back onto his two feet and deactivated Power Boost.
Dusting himself off with his one functioning hand, he glowered at his surroundings for only a few seconds before leaning over to grab the pickaxe that had fallen from Arne's hand during the cave-in and landed just out of his grasp.
With the limited Vitality and Stamina reserves that Arne's body possessed compared to his own, he would need to conserve as much of them as possible for the fights ahead of him.
Walking carefully over toward the snuffed-out torch mounted on the wall, whilst being mindful of the of rocks that had spilled out from the pile he'd been buried under and were now covering a large majority of the cave floor and extending several meters into the tunnel that would lead to the upper floors of the mine, Deacon stopped and created a thin mana string to pull the torch from its sconce.
Legs feel fine at least, Deacon mused to himself as he looked into his soul before casting Ignis.
A medium-sized flame sparked to life atop the torch's oil-soaked wrapping, immediately lighting up the cave and revealing the thick dust cloud still hanging in the air from both the original cave-in and his own doing when he'd pulled himself free from the rubble.
"Thank the System," Deacon murmured quietly under his breath as his ability to cast Ignis remained completely unaffected by his... transmigration into Arne's body.
Was that even the right word for this? he asked himself while examining the flickering flame. It's my soul that's now inhabiting Arne's physical body, and I can still feel all the spells I'd permanently engraved onto my soul still present and accessible.
But I can’t feel my Affinity for Blood, which means that I can only use Arne’s Fire Affinity – but since my Affinity is much stronger than his own, it retains the level I use it at… Deacon noted to himself before clicking his tongue.
This shit is so needlessly complicated, he sighed. Why can’t shit like this come with a manual?
Turning his gaze away from the torch toward the only tunnel available for him to travel through, Deacon began walking forward while letting the torch trail behind him on its mana string to light up his path, at least until he suddenly remembered something important.
Right, Deacon realized while stopping mid-step as he let the torch drop to the ground, where it clattered against the stone. I can see perfectly in the dark right now with Arne's Perception.
Letting out a soft chuckle at his own forgetfulness, Deacon made his way into the narrow tunnel while leaving behind the lit torch to burn itself out on the floor, though his brief amusement faded entirely at the sight of a spray-painted number 43 marked on the right wall of the tunnel that his new and significantly improved Perception stat was easily able to make out in the darkness.
"-port the cave-in to-"
"-what are we supposed to do about-?"
"-if I know what-"
"-evacuate the lower-"
"-what about that kid down there-?"
The sounds of overlapping whispers reached Deacon's far more perceptive ears, emanating from somewhere at the end of the tunnel that was leading him upward toward floor 42 of the mine.
"Do you recognize any of those voices?" Deacon asked quietly while continuing his steady advance.
Stepping out of the narrow tunnel entrance, Deacon found himself facing seven— no, six miners each holding a pickaxe in one hand except for one who had both hands free, all of them wearing far better quality clothes than the torn rags Arne had died in, with each also wearing various weapons at their belts or on their backs, possibly to deal with creatures that lived deeper within the mine.
[Human Lv 26]
[Human Lv 24]
[Goblin Lv 25]
[Two-Headed Ogre Lv 23]
[Gnome Lv 19]
[Dwarf Lv 27]
The two humans had longswords at their hips, the goblin carried a slingshot and dagger, the gnome had a wand tucked into his belt, the dwarf wore a crossbow and quiver across his back, and the two-headed ogre had a large double-handed axe strapped to his back.
But then again, they all willingly signed slave contracts, Deacon reasoned to himself, so I guess the guards don't really give much of a shit about them being armed since they're completely fucked if they try to fight back against the contract's binding after they so willingly accepted it.
That's probably why Arne was getting the third degree from both the guards and the enslaved miners, Deacon continued his analysis. The guards were wary of him potentially fighting back since he never signed away his freedom, and the enslaved miners— maybe not all of them, but definitely a large vocal minority— were envious and resentful that he never signed away his freedom when they did.
"-do you see anything down there-?" one of the humans with long, dirty blond hair asked nervously while peering into the darkness, before he was roughly pushed to the side by the dwarf, who harrumphed loudly, "Use yer damn glowtorch, ya fat fuck!"
"The human with red hair," Arne's voice said suddenly from beside him, his soul now sporting a wispy ghostly tail instead of a lower torso as he floated there.
"What about him?" Deacon asked while now focusing his attention on the level 26 human, completely unbothered by Arne's soul appearing beside him out of thin air.
"Break both his kneecaps before you kill him," Arne said with a deep scowl twisting his translucent features. "He ambushed me on the first day I was thrown down here and beat me black and blue before stealing the last crate of ore I'd managed to fill, which also prevented me from getting any food rations that day."
"I can do that," Deacon nodded in acknowledgment. "What about everyone else?"
"Kill all of them, both guards and miners alike," Arne all but spat with venom dripping from his words, and Deacon could physically feel the emotions of the body he was currently inhabiting becoming increasingly bloodthirsty and wrathful with each passing second.
"Can anyone else hear someone whispering down there?" the Gnome asked nervously to his fellow miners while squinting into the darkness.
"With that out of the way, just sit back and enjoy the show," Deacon smirked as he kicked off the ground hard, his speed easily double what he was normally capable of thanks to Arne's significantly higher Agility stat even without Power Boost, while gripping the pickaxe firmly at the end of its wooden handle.
"Wait, I think I can see—" the goblin muttered while scowling as his eyes narrowed and he cautiously inched further away from the tunnel entrance he and his fellows had emerged from and deeper into the dust-filled cavern, but he was interrupted by Deacon explosively leaping out of the thick dust cloud directly in front of him with the sharp tip of his pickaxe raised beside his head.
Just as the goblin's eyes widened in shock along with his fellows standing beside him, the pickaxe in Deacon's hands punched clean through the goblin's left temple and continued driving deep into his brain without resistance, all while Deacon's crimson eyes weren't even focused on the goblin he lunged at.
As Deacon's hands released their grip on the embedded pickaxe handle, he immediately twisted his entire body toward the next target he'd already set his sights on— the gnome.
His right hand lunged for the gnome's head, though as he registered the sound of multiple weapons being drawn and several pickaxes clattering to the stone floor behind him, Deacon lowered his hand to instead grab a fistful of the gnome's tunic and ducked low while simultaneously raising the smaller man up just as a massive double-handed axe cleaved through the space where his head had been a split-second before, the blade instead beheading the gnome in a spray of blood.
Letting go of the gnome's corpse in that same instant, Deacon's eyes shifted into vertical crimson slits as he looked up at both heads of the towering ogre while sprinting past the creature's massive form, his hand snatching up the pickaxe the ogre had dropped in favor of drawing his axe before disappearing back into the thick dust cloud.
"Was that the jötunn young’un?!" the dwarf shouted in alarm as he frantically unholstered the crossbow from his back that already had a bolt loaded and began twitchily aiming into the dust cloud, unsure of where Deacon had vanished within it.
"Did he finally lose it?!" the blonde-haired human hissed out nervously as he gripped his longsword tightly with both trembling hands held defensively in front of him.
"Come out and face us like a man, you coward!" the red-haired human shouted angrily into the dust just as the two-headed ogre let out a thunderous roar from both mouths and charged blindly into the thick cloud.
From out of the cloud at almost the same instant, a pickaxe came spinning out in a tight arc from the far left side of the cavern, however the dwarf just barely managed to raise his crossbow in time for the weapon to strike the reinforced wood instead of embedding itself into his skull.
"Ha! You dumb bastard, you mis—" the dwarf started to bellow triumphantly toward where the pickaxe had been thrown from, but was abruptly cut off when a massive chunk of loose stone dropped from the weakened ceiling and landed directly on top of the blond-haired human's shoulder, crushing his head and upper quarter of his torso to the ground under its weight.
Whipping his head around to look at what had happened to his companion, the dwarf was caught unaware when the blood-slicked dagger Deacon had pocketed from the goblin he'd killed earlier came flying from his position and sank deep into the back of the dwarf's exposed neck.
"W-Where are you hiding, you bastard!" the red-haired human shouted.
"Sneaky one-head, where are you!" the two-headed ogre roared while wildly swinging his massive axe through the dust cloud.
Deacon gave no verbal response to their shouts, instead silently leaping high into the air within the cloud of dust that was now beginning to clear from the two-headed ogre's constant axe swings, and with the ogre chasing after the two glowing red slits of Deacon's eyes visible in the dense dust, Deacon quickly scooped up a handful of walnut-sized rocks from the ground and whipped them right at the ogre's unarmored groin with every ounce of strength he could muster.
The attack produced a wet squelching pop followed immediately by a high-pitched squeaky yelp as the two-headed ogre dropped its axe and both hands instinctively clutched at its bloodied crotch.
Deacon immediately sprinted toward the incapacitated ogre without stopping for even a moment as he scooped up the fallen double-handed axe mid-stride and leaped high into the air before cleaving clean through both of the ogre's thick necks in a single powerful swing.
"You fucking bastard!" the red-haired human shouted while beginning to inch backward toward the tunnel that would lead him to the next upper floor and safety. "Come out and face me like a real man! You mighty jötnar always claim to never be cowards, but here you are hiding in the shadows like some thief!"
The ogre's bloodied axe suddenly shot out of the receding dust cloud spinning end over end, and the human just barely managed to throw himself to the side to avoid the weapon, however he was immediately greeted with Deacon lunging out of the dust cloud right behind the thrown axe and delivering a knee to his face.
The impact sent the human flying backward through the air before his body collided hard with the solid stone wall of the cavern with a sickening crunch.
"Is this really how I would have fought if I'd chosen to become a rogue instead of a warrior?" Deacon muttered while clicking his teeth in distaste. "Thank the System I didn't go down that path."
"Have you gotten used to using my stats yet?" Arne asked from where he was floating nearby.
"More or less," Deacon shrugged casually as he walked over and grabbed a fistful of the man's red hair before dragging him away from where he'd been huddled against the wall, ignoring how he cried out in pain and how his face was now covered in blood from his broken nose.
With two swift and brutal stomps, Deacon broke both of the man's kneecaps, which elicited even louder agonized screams from the man.
"Is this good enough?" Deacon asked while glancing at Arne, who nodded with an incredibly satisfied expression on his translucent face.
Though I'm personally not entirely sure why he's so satisfied, Deacon thought to himself. If I wanted revenge on someone, I'd much rather do it myself than outsource the job to someone else, but to each their own, I suppose.
Turning his gaze back down to the red-haired man who was now staring up at him with tears actively welling in his pain-filled eyes, Deacon raised his bloodied right boot above the man's head.
"Arne sends his regards," he said flatly, enjoying the brief flash of confusion that appeared in the man's eyes before Deacon's boot came crashing down and crushed his head.