33: An Honest, Simple, Regular Dungeon, Part Four

An Honest, Simple, Regular Dungeon, Part Four

"I apologize," Erin said after Neve's mana fully regenerated and she resummoned her. "I should have been more attentive but-"

"No," Neve replied, looting the corpses. "You did fine. You don't need to apologize for anything."

Predictably, Erin had managed to kill all the enemies after Neve went down. 

Their weapons were the only things they had on them, unfortunately. Erin didn't want to use any of them, and that mage's staff was worse than the one she carried, so she just sold everything bringing her to 5931 WS Tokens.

In terms of EXP, the kills had brought her up to this point:

EXP: 115/410

[With how shitty I've been to you in this dungeon, maybe what happened in that last room was just karma,] Neve thought, as she reflected on that last fight.

Given how much of it was a result of that Silence spell, she felt there wasn't a whole lot to go over, but she also felt it was also a good idea to recap most of her fights going forward. 

Just because she made a mistake and lived through it this time didn't mean the same thing would happen in the future. Minimizing mistakes was the name of the game as far as surviving on her own was concerned, as there was no one around, aside from Erin if one could count her, who would make up for them. 

"Heh... You are rather kind," Erin replied. "Mistakes among warriors were not tolerated amongst my people. One slip-up would often result in harsh punishments. I always thought this attitude would serve to provide us with advantages on the battlefield in the future, and yet we lost our home to those invaders all the same. Perhaps our mentality needed some adjustments."

"... What happened to you was a sneak attack, wasn't it? Is that really something you can beat yourselves up over?"

"Maybe not," Erin replied. "I just... I wonder what we may have been able to do to prevent it."

[... Not that what she did was justified or anything, but it is funny to think that Erin hasn't considered that maybe they could have just treated Terralyn better. Doesn't seem to have crossed her mind, but, meh. I guess I could ask about it later.]

"What about you?" Erin suddenly asked.

"Hm?" As Neve glanced back and forth between the two doors they could walk through to proceed, she briefly looked over at her summon.

"How do you deal with the mistakes you make? You have not made many since I have known you, so, it is hard for me to tell."

"Pfft," Neve shook her head. "I make mistakes all the time."

"Truly?"

"Yeah... Give me time. You'll get to watch me fuck up sooner or later."

Neve tried to push the left-hand door open, but it would not budge.

[Locked. Maybe that's a shortcut? Could be a treasure room too.]

They went through the door on the right. It led to a spacious area where a narrow, stone bridge held the way to the next part of the dungeon. A simple slip would result in falling several stories to one's death, landing at a brightly lit portion of the dungeon where Neve saw something that caught her eye.

[Oh... Damn.]

"What is that thing?" Erin asked, peeking over the stone bridge as well.

The intense lighting below wasn't coming from any lit torches or magical artifacts, but rather, a monster.

[Yeah... that's not good.]

"A balrog, I think they're called," Neve answered quietly.

As if on cue, the monster they found far below began pacing from side to side. Each footstep it took made the walls and bridge shake slightly.

"Is that what you are here to kill?" Erin asked, glancing over at her.

"Maybe."

[I hope that's not the boss, though. I've never fought one of those myself, but I've heard a lot of bad things about them. Some monsters are dangerous regardless of what level they are, due to natural strengths and advantages they can have over players. Just going off the rumors I've heard about these guys, they probably fall under that category.]

She recalled seeing a news article talking about how a high-level group performing a joint dungeon clear, led by the Golden Dragons and the Steel Heart guilds, had been wiped out by one, individual balrog.

[Sometimes, dungeons will have optional segments that are harder than the rest of the regular parts of the dungeon, where the enemies are far above the recommended level. It's usually pretty obvious when you're walking into one of those areas. If I had to guess, that balrog might be an optional boss... which would also mean it would drop a lot of treasures if I beat it. But, do I want to take that risk?]

"I might end up fighting it," Neve muttered.

[I need to get stronger. I mean, obviously, I don't want to get myself killed in the process, but if I'm going to be able to track down and eliminate Thomas's group, I need to take these kinds of opportunities.]

"You are one brave woman," Erin asked.

"Nope. Stupid is more like it. Stupid and desperate."

"One could certainly argue that bravery is a direct result of, at the very least, those two factors."

Hearing that, Neve snorted, glancing over at the lamia by her side. 

"Is that right?" Neve smiled a little. "Well, whatever. Come on, let's keep moving."

They began making their way over the bridge, with Neve looking ahead and to the sides to make sure they wouldn't be caught by surprise. Even if whatever attacked them here didn't kill them, the risk that a stray arrow could cause Neve to slip and fall into the abyss lit only by that demonic creature was more than enough to make Neve worry.

"Hm?" Erin's ears twitched and, suddenly, she turned around.

"What is it?"

The lamia's eyes widened.

"Up there!"

Neve turned to look where she was gesturing at and found that above the entrance they'd just walked through was a platform. Neve couldn't see anything, but given Erin's reaction, there was probably something up there.

"Get behind me!" Somewhat forcefully, Erin pulled Neve back. She nearly tripped on the woman's tail.

Neve stumbled but kept her balance and aimed her staff down at her feet, casting {Sacred Ground} twice.

"I cannot reach them, but I will block any projectiles they throw at us. What should we do?" Erin asked.

Just as she finished asking that, an arrow soared through the air and Erin swiped it out of the air with her bare hands.

Neve looked back at the other end of the bridge.

[... If I had to guess, there are absolutely going to be enemies coming out of that part in just a minute. It's a pretty textbook thing for game devs to do, to throw you into a room with some enemies ahead and have you get hit by other enemies from behind that you hadn't seen. Thanks to Erin, though, we caught on to it.]

"Push to the end of the bridge," Neve stated. "Ignore these guys. I could shoot them with my magic, but it would take too long to beat them. We should try to make it to the other end of the room as fast as we can."

"I understand. In that case," Erin said, before slithering over to Neve and grabbing her by the arms.

"W-What!?" Neve yelped as Erin pulled her, carrying the mage.

"Hold on to me," Erin instructed.

Then, her whole body was covered in a dim red glow.

[What?]

Neve looked above Erin's head and found:

Level 40

MP: 50/1001

[Is she using {The Lamia's Hunt}?]

"Do not worry," Erin said confidently, "I will not drop you... You should hold on tightly, though."

Neve did so and, as soon as Erin felt her squeeze on her shoulders, the lamia burst forward.

She strode across the bridge at an incredible pace. The sudden increase in speed nearly made Neve's hands slip, but she managed to keep her grip.

Arrows bounced off the stone behind them. As they approached the end of the bridge, Neve heard clicking sounds coming from ahead.

[I was right.]

"I-"

Neve wasn't able to get any instructions out before Erin engaged the enemies. She shoulder-tackled one of them off the bridge. At least, that's what it looked like to Neve. Then, it seemed like she managed to grab onto an opponent's sword in the middle of its swing, blood dripping down Erin's hands, before she tossed that opponent off the bridge as well.

Gravity, still undefeated, did the rest.

EXP Gained: 30

EXP Gained: 35

EXP: 170/410

WS Tokens Gained: 40

WS Tokens Gained: 40

WS Tokens: 6011

As they reached the other end of the bridge, Erin took cover behind a wall and allowed Neve to get back to her feet.

Quickly, Neve cast {Healing Ground} to heal up Erin's hands.

She couldn't help but cast an impressed look at her summon, though.

[... What she did back there goes beyond just having above-average senses, doesn't it?] Neve thought. [Spotting the enemies above, being able to deal with invisible attacks the way that she is, Erin really is one hell of a warrior, isn't she?]

"Well, that was exhilarating," Erin said with a chuckle. "Shall we continue?"

Neve nodded.

"Yeah. Come on, if I had to guess, we're almost halfway through this dungeon."

"Wonderful, I will-"

And, Erin disappeared.

"... That's probably going to end up happening at a really bad time later, isn't it? I need to do a better job of keeping track of her time."

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