Chương 39

"You stink," Kiki said.

"I can smell you through my equipment, so it must be bad."

"First of all, we're in the dead body disposal pit, I'm not the primary source of the stench," Oliver replied.

"Second, your equipment looks like a fire hazard, so that's not too much of a surprise that you can suddenly smell your surroundings now." Both of them were recovering from the battle, using the deflated dead monstrosity as a raft over the fleshy floor. Oliver knew their reprieve wouldn't last long. The room would absorb this flesh into itself soon enough. Still, the chance to catch his breath for a minute was invaluable. Kiki's helmet was cracked down one of her eyes, splitting the pink eye slit.

It flickered, but she seemed to have perfectly fine vision. Unlike Oliver, her equipment granted her darkvision. Thanks to the slight light emitted from Kiki's sword, Oliver found a bulge in the loose flabs of skin. He tore through it barehanded, his Strength attribute putting in some work. Just as he suspected, he discovered his silver shovel sizzling the flesh under the skin.

"Found my shovel," Oliver called out.

"Next is Ben's communication device."

"Over here," Kiki beckoned.

"Looks like your acid burned through the floor. Good call with that. Bring your shovel so we can dig him out." Oliver grunted and stepped up to the edge of their skin carpet. Sure enough, just as Kiki said, the metallic gleam shown at the bottom of a small green hole in the flesh. He threw his back into it as he jabbed his shovel at the metal box's edge. Just barely getting under it, he pried up his prize, doing his best to ignore the sickening noise it made as he peeled the box out of the flesh.

Once freed of the meaty prison, Ben's drone's lights once again illuminated the pit." Well done surviving. Did I hear you mention damage to Kiki's armor?" Ben asked.

"It's not anything—""It barely looks like it's holding together," Oliver said, cutting off Kiki.

"If I didn't have points in Resilence, I'd be scared to stand this close to her. I'm surprised it's not actively electrocuting her."" Plug me in,"Ben demanded. Kiki raised a hand in protest but it was as if Ben could sense her reluctance from two biomes over." No complaints, Kiki. I need to diagnose your gear. If I had been thinking properly, I would have assessed it after you escaped those vampires. You likely took significant damage holding them off."

While Ben convinced Kiki to plug his communication device into her suit, Oliver glanced over at his level up notification and assigned his points. He placed one free point in Dexterity to boost himself to the 140 threshold and put the other two points in Strength. He examined his status. Oliver Nightingale. Level 56. Class 1 - [Grave Robber] Skills 1 - Appraisal, Shadow Slink, Shovel Proficiency. Class 2 - [Underkeeper] Skills 2 - Death Aura, Summon Sanctuary (Coffin), Echoes of the Dead.

Class 3 - [Paranormal Slayer] If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. Skills 3 - Silver Potency. Uncanny Sight. Pistol Proficiency. Status Points - Strength 48, Dexterity 140, Resilience 64, Mental 5, Speech 5, Luck 0. Free Points - Mel - 961 Oliver then took a minute to thoroughly study their surroundings.

The hole in the floor left behind by Ben revealed a stone floor underneath the layer of flesh, the green acid splattered across the ground kept it from caving in on the sides. According to the book he'd uncovered, there should be a secret passage somewhere in the room. Removing all the flesh would be a nightmare of a task, and not one realistically accomplished before the vampires in the torture chamber above checked in on them.

After a moment of consideration, Oliver hopped off the rug of skin left behind by the flesh amalgamation and into the hole. Now lower, he scanned the surface of the flesh. He was hoping to spot any sort of discrepancy in the flesh. Something to indicate a passageway underneath it. Standing on the stone floor, the layer of flesh reached his waist in height. As far as he could tell from a quick examination, the flesh was even all across its surface, though it did undulate slightly.

He considered using his Echoes of the Dead skill to see if he could extract additional information about the room from the spirits who'd passed away here. A moment of consideration and he dismissed the idea. The messages he'd pick up would more than likely just be mad ramblings. This was the disposal pit of a torture chamber. No one here died sane. Even if some of the dead did have useful information, there would be too many voices shouting in his ear all at once.

A problem he'd encountered on many occasions while in the Nightmare Biome. After another minute, he decided to go through his things and see if he had any tools to assist him.

He had the lacquered wooden box mostly full of silver, his shovel, a couple more vials of acid, his used fairy ring, his Ring of Lycanthrope, a few rags, silver bullets, a fair bit of salt, the book by Yinyan Zheng, a syringe of poison, a pouch of hallucinogen tablets, a crumpled up black flame-resistant shirt, a single remaining healing potion, a few feet of coiled rope, and the Face of Carter mask he'd obtained as a quest reward at the start of this all.

As he quickly switched into the spare shirt he lamented that he'd left that baseball bat in his sanctuary. With that, he might have been able to simply smash through the stone floor. At the time, he'd deemed it too heavy and unwieldy to carry about. Plus, he didn't want the size enchantment on him while slinking through the castle's corridors. It was a rational decision that he now regretted. A weapon to get through the stone floor would be invaluable. Oliver blinked.

"Hey, Kiki," he called over to his companion.

"What was your sword skill again?" Ben scolded the [Neon Samurai] as she turned slightly to face him. The [Technomancer] had wires linking the communication device to her chestplate and helmet. One of them popped out as she cocked her head at Oliver.

"Sword proficiency?" Oliver shook his head.

"Not that one. You mentioned your skills let your sword cut things. Back on the beach, you insisted that it would even work on ghosts." Despite Ben's complaints, Kiki's footing shifted into a fighting stance, her sword suddenly in hand.

"Your skill picked up on ghosts? Where?" She slowly turned, her blade out as if ready to cut down any poltergeist the moment it showed itself. Oliver held back a sigh. At least she was prepared to fight at the drop of a hat. That was far from the worst mindset to have here.

"Our skin raft is sinking," Oliver pointed out.

"Unless you want to huddle together on this tiny patch of stone flooring and wait for the vampires to come back, we need to find a way out of this place."

"And that involves my…" Kiki trailed off.

"You want me to slice through the floor and get us down that way? I suppose that should be possible with my skill. I've sliced through metal plated doors before."" Hold. I need another eighteen seconds to finish your diagnoses,"Ben replied." Your armor is in extremely bad shape. From this point on, I strongly recommend you do not trust in it to hold you together. I've repaired some of the internal software and rerouted power in several places to optimize its remaining utility.

However, I have no means in which to physically repair the broken hardware, let alone weld the physical shape back together. Kiki, you need to alter your fighting style to rely on your high dexterity." Kiki nodded her head once.

"Understood. I take no damage if nothing ever touches me." Oliver pulled himself back up on the corpse of the monstrosity as she took his place in the hole. In a blur of neon pink, she brought down her sword on the unsuspecting stone. It took mere seconds for Kiki to carve a passage for them. And not a moment too soon, as the hatch overhead lifted once again.